Posted by Joshua on Tuesday, June 18th, 2013

Obama Owes Syrians and Americans a Vision of Syria’s Future

By Joshua Landis
June 15, 2013

[Addendum (24 June) See Thomas Friedman’s op-ed of Sunday 23 for comparison of his three Obama options with my three. Putting it in the context of collapsing Ottoman Empire and nation building is also similar.

It is still unclear to me where the president is going with Syria, but I see only three possible strategies: the realist, the idealist and the God-I-hope-we-are-lucky approaches….

Will Obama be content if the Free Syrian Army can keep the north of Syria and finish taking Aleppo?

Will he decide that the rebels should take Damascus as well, pushing the regime and the Alawite religious group, which predominates within the regime, back toward the western coast-land, where Alawites constitute the majority of the population?

Or will Obama decide to back the rebels with enough firepower to destroy the regime altogether, occupying both the predominantly Alawite and Kurdish regions of Syria?

Now that President Obama has decided to champion the opposition militarily, he must set out clear goals and explain his vision for Syria’s future.

The obvious choices that Obama must choose from are three.

1. The one state solution: Preserving Syria as a unitary state by keeping the country one. This means supporting the Sunni Arab opposition with enough weapons and backing to conquer Hama, Homs and Damascus, as well as occupy both the Alawite and Kurdish regions. The same result could be reached by a political compromise (Geneva), but a negotiated solution seems unlikely. Without a foreign occupation of Syria to impose a solution on all sides, no incentive exists for either the Assad regime or opposition militias to make painful concessions that could diminish their authority.

The Taif Accords that ended the Lebanese Civil War, and are often pointed to as a model for Geneva, were agreed to by the disputing Lebanese parties largely because Syria occupied Lebanon and disarmed the various militias — that is all except for Hizbullah, which continues to defy central authority today. Without Syrian boots on the ground, the Lebanese militias would have been unlikely to lay down their arms or have agreed to live under a common government, even one as weak and dysfunctional as the present Lebanese government.

2. The two state solution: Divide the country into two states, which corresponds to the present reality. This means simply giving the rebels enough backing to stop the Syrian Army’s offensive in the north and empowering them to fully capture Aleppo, Deir al-Zur and their surrounding countrysides. Of course, the rebel forces are made up of over 1,000 militias. This means that the rebel-held north is anything but stable and offers only a rough patchwork security for those who live there. What is more, big hunks of the north are presently ruled by al-Qaida affiliated groups. Thus, Obama has set the US up for a two front war. One against Assad in the south and another against Jabhat al-Nusra and its allies in the east.

3. The three state solution: Divide the country into three, following the ethnic lines of the major combatant groups. This is the Balkan solution, pursued by President Clinton when he cut Yugoslavia into 7 states. This would mean creating an Alawite, a Sunni Arab, and a Kurdish state. Such a solution would be opposed by the rebels and much of the international community, but it would recognize the difficulties in putting Syria back together again.

If the US decides to help the Sunni Arab rebels go for a total victory, it must take responsibility for ensuring that ethnic cleansing of Syria’s minorities is not carried out by the empowered Sunni Arab majority. Only an international peace-keeping force can guarantee against unnecessary bloodshed if Obama hopes to arm the Sunni militias for a clean sweep. Many of the militiamen make no bones about their desire for vengeance or their belief that Shiites no longer have a place in their country. This is to be expected after the brutal beating they have taken at the hands of the Alawite-dominated Syrian Army.

For those who dismiss the dangers of ethnic cleansing, it is worth remembering that after the defeat of the Third Reich in WWII, over 12 million Germans were driven out of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and other Eastern European states, where they had lived for hundreds of years. So too, were the Armenians and Greek Orthodox driven from Anatolia by Ottoman and Turkish troops during the terrible fighting that swept over the region from 1914 to 1922. Anatolia was close to 20% Christian in 1914. By 1922, less than 1% remained, as over three million Christians were cleansed or forced into a population exchange with Greece, which expelled some half a million of its own Muslims. More recently, Palestinians have been driven from their lands, destabilizing the region for decades. Iraqi Christians took flight from their native land as anti-Christian violence grew to a crescendo with the attack on Saydet al-Najat Church in 2010. Their numbers fell by over half. Ethnic cleansing is only one of the dangers that President Obama must protect against as he builds up the rebels into a more lethal fighting force.

If Obama wants rebels to take Damascus, he must guarantee that that fighting does not destroy the city, as happened to Aleppo. If he provides only howitzers, simple rockets and lighter forms of weapons, stalemate and fierce street-by-street fighting will ensure that Syria’s capital of some 5 million people is leveled. Another major wave of refugees will stream out of Syria.

President Obama is arguing that his new policy of supplying weapons in not really a change of policy at all, but rather a continuation of his previous policy of pushing for a political solution. But this doesn’t correspond to the Syria I know. I doubt that either the rebels or the Assad regime are willing or able to make the painful compromises needed to keep the country unified. This is a recipe for dividing the country along the present battle lines, give or take a bit.

He owes both the American and Syrian people a clear statement about what he sees as Syria’s future borders and how he plans to help Syria’s rebels build what he called a “stable, non-sectarian representative Syrian government that is addressing the needs of its people through peaceful processes.”

Comments (544)

As I said before, first creat northern state is the best solution, then we can watch if this state can be governed by democratic system, certainly this will be temporary arrangement, as the revolution should be allowed to continue, the next step would be to liberate Damascus, and Push Assad to the coast, the third stage is to liberate the coast

Obama owes nothing of his vision to Syrians,he should look after the declining economy in his own country,and stop serving the arm dealers for once,or may be this is how he is helping the American economy.

Someone in the precedent comment section seemed not to be convinced that Morsi is an uncurable idiot. Reading this summary http://angryarab.net/2013/06/18/morsis-speech/
and checking for “Morsi readjusts himself” on Google should be sufficient. Watching Bassam Youssef’s last season of al Bernameg on Youtube would also help, as much as it helps keeping good spirits.

Obama and the rest of G7 leaders are not much different than the regime supporters. They hail as victory anything they do. It is just laughable. How is this G8 summit different than before. All other prior meetings with the Russians, the final statement ended up avoiding any mention to The fate of Batta al Assad. Why to put Syria on the agenda when they know in advance they are getting nowhere? Bypass the Russians, declare Batta, the children killer as a war criminal, and do what Clinton did in Kosovo.

The beltway isn’t going to rebuild Syria, Syria is only the neo-conns stepping stone to Tehran and they won’t even say thanks. We the people of Amerika can’t get help from the beltway except more austerity so what do you think you get from potus 0. This is sad and I hope Putin continues to arm the Syrian Army so they can run the hired criminal out of the country.

The FSA took over the Omari mosque in Daraa where the Syrian revolution started. Few pro revolution demonstrators were seen in the mosque raising the revolution flag on Youtube. Looking forward toward the same flag to be raised in Aburumaneh.

For the lovely Tara: “The latest MetroPoll survey indicated that 54.2% of respondents opposed the government’s Syria policy, while only 27.4% supported it.”

Most Turks Do Not Support Erdogan’s Syria Policy

Recent developments have driven Ankara’s Syria policy farther down a dead end, leaving a frustrated Erdogan government to invest more hope than the situation merits in the decision by the United States to send light arms to the Syrian opposition in the expectation that this will somehow tip the balance against President Bashar al-Assad.

One of these developments is the defeat of the opposition in the strategic city of Qusair by Assad forces with overt backing from the Lebanese Hezbollah and covert support from Iran. For Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, this has raised the specter of Assad winning the war and remaining in power.

Apart from delivering a blow to their desire to see a Sunni-dominated government in Syria, a victory by Assad would also pose a security threat for Ankara reminiscent of the days when Damascus backed the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in its terrorist campaign against Turkey of nearly three decades, starting in the mid-1980s.

Obama and his administration can’t have a vision because they have no clue about what is going on and what to do.

In the last 2 years, they had hopes that the opposition will unite, they hammered it at every single FOS meeting, they had hopes the army will collapse, that the mass of Syrian will go on strike against someone they were convinced was a dictator hated by the majority of Syrians. Then they hoped the rebels funded and armed by Qatar and helped by the CIA will win militarily etc….

Then suddenly they realize that the army stayed united and strong, the government too, that there were no massive strikes, that the majority of Syrian appear either to love or at least tolerate Bashar Al Assad, that the armed rebels were morphing into Al Qaeda terrorists, that the opposition was ever more divided than when it was first created by Turkey and Qatar and that it had become a civil war with dangerous sectarian and ethnical ramifications in the region.

That must have been a shock to realize that all their calculations went wrong.

Now what miracle Josh Landis is counting on for Obama to suddenly see where he wants Syria to be.

If Obama can’t use his army to make another invasion, then he is paralyzed and can just react to events with whatever means he can find.
That’s why he is coming up every now and then with fabrications and promises intended to influence the events. In vain.
When economical sanctions are ineffective and there is no decision to use boots on the ground, it becomes obvious that the USA is totally paralyzed and unable to solve diplomatically any international conflict.
For the last 25 years, Iran is an excellent example of the US impotence without its GI’s.
Syria is now another one.

Al Khatib defended them, no? Because he knew that without Al Nusra, the FSA is zero.
Idriss admitted it: the FSA is composed of 80% of civilians just recently trained and 20% defectors. In addition there is no cohesion and discipline as these groups are suspicious of each other.
It is an “amateur” army and new weapons won’t change much.

I worry that the FSA may end up being massacred by Al Nusra who are getting money, advanced weapons from the Gulf ‘charities’ and from private Sunnis who think they’ll go to heaven it they eliminate the Shias and create a Sunni caliphate. There are more than you can imagine.

The irony will be when the SAA will eventually protect the FSA soldiers from the Al Nusra attacks.

The way you posted that Uzair is sort of fun: you said Clark said the US should be prepared to consider putting soldiers in Syria to assist the rebels.

Uzair I just watched Clark. He didn’t exactly say the US will put soldiers inside Syria did he?

I can see the US attacking Syria out of sheer desperation but under no circumstances can I see US soldiers inside Syria fighting on the side of Al-Qaeda against the Syrian government. That is a real dream Uzair but my dad always told me if you dream DREAM BIG and that is dreaming awfully big.

Turkey has become a country where the ruling party representing half of the country’s electorate is exercising the state’s police (and military if needed) force in the most brutal way on the other half of electorate, who launched a massive uprising against the government’s growing authoritarian inclinations.

Asked about the state of Libya after the US-led intervention to liberate the country and bring prosperity and human rights, Professor Yehoudit Ronen, a Libya expert at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, had this to say:

“The post-Gaddafi Libya is a chaotic and violent state without political stabilization, without internal security for its people, without security on its borders.”

Asked who runs Libya these days, after the West’s favorite tyrant Gaddafi has been sodomized and murdered by NATO allies, he replied:

“I would say that the armed militia. They have the last word, and the ruling institutions are helpless.”

But surely the NATO intervention has brought about the great economic advantages promised to the liberated people?

HA! HA! HA ! Cameron naively think that as the opposition can’t topple Bashar al Assad, the ‘loyalists would. Just like Obama, he has no clue on what is going on in the Syrians minds after two years of chaos and destruction

You seem to have a nice blog, although I haven’t yet thoroughly read its posts.
Yes, the Syrian coast is mostly Sunni, and Professor Landis pointed out a few months ago- when he was discussing the possibility of an “Alawi state” in the coast-that no major coastal city (Latakia or Tartus) has an Alawi majority. However, al-Qasir until two weeks ago had a 99% Sunni majority. Alas, thanks to the war crimes of Bashar and Hasan Nasr, al-Qasir now has more Shia sectarian terrorists belonging to Hizb a-Shaytan of Hasan Nasr, thank Sunnis!

“Idriss admitted it: the FSA is composed of 80% of civilians just recently trained and 20% defectors”

Yes. Then we both know this is a revolution of the people against the dictator. Civilians who took up arms to protect their own and defectors who could not stand killing civilians and burning their own country. And that is exactly why they remained rag tag and disorganized. It is a spontaneous revolution.

Is there a reason why the Syrian people’s choice (through elections) wasn’t discussed/proposed as a choice for Mr. Obama!?! And if the choice is to preserve Syria, why should it be under Sunni/GCC/Al Qaeda control!?!

The G8 demanded Al-Qaeda/Nusra leave Syria; no mention of Hezbollah in the document.

The G8 called on the Syrian government to DESTROY Al-Qaeda, and any organizations/individuals linked to Al-Qaeda in Syria. That means Idris et al. Here is the quote:

“86. We are deeply concerned by the growing threat from terrorism and extremism in Syria, and also by the increasingly sectarian nature of the conflict. Syria must belong to all Syrians, including its minorities and all religious groups. We call on the Syrian authorities and opposition at the Geneva Conference jointly to commit to destroying and expelling from Syria all organisations and individuals affiliated to Al Qaeda, and any other non-state actors linked to terrorism. We will support UN planning for Syria’s transition, recovery, and reconstruction needs, in particular by maintaining continuity of state institutions during transition and helping to ensure that the security forces are effective, accountable and able to deal with the threat of terrorism and extremism.”

I do not think Aleppo is a ” done deal” but what happens there in the next few weeks may help shape positions about Geneva 2, if the army does in Aleppo what it did in Q’sair you will see new calls to negotiate but not necessarily with the same conditions, I do not think the environment is now ripe for a political settlement, rebels and their backers believe that they should only attend Geneva 2 from a ” position of strength” to dictate their conditions on the regime who in return wants to keep pushing rebels in reef Dimashq and Homs in addition to keeping rebels under pressure in the north and Dair Azzour. A clear victory by the rebels is neither possible, without direct foreign intervention, nor permissible by the G7 and Russia, what Obama is trying to do is force Assad to give up his political ambitions beyond the end of his second term, the problem is that rebels were never sincere about accepting a settlement that requires them to share power with the regime, and the same is true about the regime who is not willing to sacrify Assad to facilitate an agreement. This ocean of difference can only be overcome with a strong international will to end the war or a decisive victory by one side over the other, I remain skeptical that either possibility is attainable unless turkey makes a U turn and stop arms and fighters influx into Syria, Turkey and Russia hold the keys today, the GCC is largely irrelevant now, Putin’s hardline on Assad at the G8 reflects his belief that NATO is retracting while the Syrian army is making progress.

Sectarian cleansing in Syria has already taken place in a number of areas but not at the scale described in the Balkan region or Turkey . There are still over 1 million alawites in greater Damascus and hundred of thousands of Sunnis in Latakia. The claim that Syrian coastal areas are mostly Sunni is not supported by any serious recent study, Tartous is decisively dominated by alawites with a sizable Christian presence, in Latakia alawites do not have a similar dominance but saying that most of Latakia is sunni isca stretch.
An ” exchange” of population means that you have to displace over 2 million Syrians to create two states, most Syrians are opposed to that but the idea of a semi independent state in the coast does have support among many alawites, new reports of large deposits of oil and gas in the Mediterranean sea gave new reasons for separatists to accept such idea. A divided Syria means, among other things, that Palestinians can say good bye to any hope of a sovereign and independent state, supporters of Israel would love to see Syria divided. Another dilemma is how moderate Sunnis feel about living in a state dominated by the MB or religious extremists. A divided Syria is a sexy idea now but it is not good for Syria or the region, however, that idea will become a project if the war does not end.

“The time has come for Turkey to get rid of the dictator,” opposition leader Kilicdaroglu retorted to Erdogan in parliament today.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters yesterday in Washington that the U.S. believes most Turks at the demonstrations were “peacefully protesting, expressing their rights to freedom of speech.” She cited concerns about “reports of activity including police brutality,” and also said the U.S. is “very troubled by any pressure being placed on journalists or media organizations.”http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-18/turkey-detains-protest-suspects-eu-meetings-reported-canceled.html

Great article by Joshua Landis
Obama unfortunately has no clear vision in neither Syria,or Afghanistan or Irak , USA history in ME repeating itself, USA once again is defeated in ME affairs.
Only solution they see brutal invasion besides that,they are incapable clowns.
all we hear is rhetoric Assad must go,Chemical weapons use, arm rebels,no clear solution.
What Country did USA rebuild after invasion? none,once again they will run away with their tail behind their leg.Now Obama is ready to negotiate with the enemy in Taliban bummer,soon he will accept Assad 🙂
Looks like USA don’t know what to do when they meet resistance in ME,they got exposed once again,these are not you Sunni puppet state, Get out Run away !!!!
Obama please save us Dollars and American lives…
Putin has checkmated G7
Russia-G7 5-0!!!

Hopes and dreams are not reality,Qusair will not be repeated in Halab,in Qusair it was surrounded,in Halab the rebels surround the regime troops,

I said it before,once US get involved , US will be the major player, France and England will be important, US is trying to return the balance so both sides agree to go to Geneva 2, but Russia is not serious,,Assad is not serious too, about going to Geneva 2, certainly Assad will not go if he starts losing again,I doubt Geneva 2 will convene this year.
arming the FSA will be limited, but the rebels has to concentrate on Halab area,so northern state can be established.

We have not heared of another victory for the Assad since Qusair, Revenir and Zoo are bombastic.

Try to make sense of this:
(Reuters) – The United States and the Taliban raised hopes for a negotiated peace in Afghanistan with commitments to meet this week after 12 years of bloody and costly war between American-led forces and the insurgents.
The Taliban opened an office in Doha, the Qatari capital, on Tuesday to help restart talks and said it wanted a political solution that would bring about a just government and end foreign occupation of Afghanistan.
( they will negotiate with terrorists who killed thousands of soldiers from NATO countries but do not want to negotiate with the Syrian regime)

i saw on AL Jazeera interview with Taliban Guy who said while he is negotiating with USA and Obama, they will continue suicide attacks,fighting against NATO and its troops.
Hmmm did not see Obama fuming about this saying that Taliban is not committed to peace double standards?

Russia Muslims Reject Shari`ah Courts (http://www.onislam.net/english/news/europe/456819-russia-muslims-reject-shariah-courts.html)
MOSCOW – A call by a Chechen lawyer for creating Shari`ah courts in Russia is inviting a strong opposition from Muslim religious leaders in the European country.
“According to the Constitution, religion is separated from the state in Russia,” Talgat Tajuddin, the head of the Central Spiritual Muslim Board, told Interfax news agency.

“Our country has its own judicial system and Muslims use it as equal citizens of Russia.”

Chechen lawyer Dagir Hasavov has earlier called for creating Shari`ah courts in Russia.

In an interview with REN-TV, the lawyer argued that Muslims can not resort to secular courts.

“You think that we come here to Russia as if it was some alien place to us. But we think that we are at home here. Maybe you are aliens here and we are at home,” he said.

“And we will impose the rules that suit us, whether you want it or not. Any attempts to stop us will end in blood,” the lawyer said.

But Russian Muslim leaders rejected the lawyer’s argument.

Tajuddin said muftis already intervene to settle disputes between Muslims and non-Muslim Russians.

He said Muslims contact their religious bodies if they have questions about religion, family, or inheritance issues.

The Russian Federation is home to some 23 million Muslims in the north of the Caucasus and southern republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.
Islam is Russia’s second-largest religion representing roughly 15 percent of its 145 million predominantly Orthodox population.
‘Unfit’ Courts
The Moscow Muslim Board also rejected the call, saying that Shari`ah courts do not fit secular countries as Russia.
“Russia is a secular state and our theologian ancestors found a way to unite the religious and secular legal systems,” chairman Albir Krganov told Interfax.
“For example, the Central Spiritual Muslim Board has had the institution of qadis, who answer people’s questions about faith, for more than a century.”
Krganov argued that Shari`ah courts better fit religious countries as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The Muslim leader said that Shari`ah courts have negative perceptions among Russians.
“We all remember when people were publicly executed in the Caucasus in the name of religion, despite the fact that they had absolutely no right to do that.”
Mikhail Fedotov, the head of Russia’s Presidential Council on Human Rights, described the lawyer’s call for Shari`ah courts in Russia as “unacceptable”.
No civil state can have two coexisting court systems as it would undermine the rule of law, he told Interfax.
However, Vsevolod Chaplin, a spokesman for Russia’s Orthodox Church, said Russian Muslims should not be deprived of their customs and that Shari`ah courts could be established under the law.

Vladimir Putin may allow Assad to go if power vacuum in Syria is avoided
British hopeful that peace talks to end civil war can go ahead, but divided Syrian opposition remains a big stumbling block

“The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is willing to see the removal of the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, but only if it leads to a balanced government and not a dangerous power vacuum of the kind that followed Saddam Hussein’s removal in Iraq, British officials believe after two days of intensive talks at the G8 summit.”

You’re giving Mr. Obama too much credit. I doubt he even considered a single choice, let alone three choices, or actually contemplated Syria more than just a passing thought. He probably got a phone call from Mr. Clinton (or Mrs. Clinton) to beg him to do something, anything in view of recent regime successes in Qusayr and elsewhere. Did you notice he didn’t even make the announcement himself? There’s no American public appetite for any sort of involvement in Syria. If he was serious about Syria or has a vision for a stable or a democratic Syria, you’d think he would at least hold a brief press conference and outline his vision and tell the American people why this is the right thing to do. He didn’t do that because he’s not serious, he’s leading from behind as usual. Although some of the U.S. Gulf allies would like nothing more than to topple the Assad regime as soon as possible, there are other allies and other interests inside the U.S. government who would probably prefer that the war drags on. Are you telling us that Mr. Obama suddenly cares that 100,000 Syrians have been killed or millions are driven out of their homes, two years later? I doubt it, the latest decision was probably made based on some sort of political expediency and nothing more, possibly to entice Bashar to the negotiating table or to save face before he showed up in Northern Ireland this week. Mr. Obama doesn’t care, the whole world doesn’t care, the Arabs are scum and after their own interests, I’m afraid Syria(ns) will be left to self-destruct – this benefits (almost) everyone except the Syrians themselves.

Thanks for the good and balanced article. I share most of your questions and these are issues that need an answer least we find once again involved in a major conflict that sees no end. Unfortunately it appears that the international community is not yet able to think in the long term and to make a strategic and not purely tactical decision.

It has been proved that the most powerful part of the Armed opposition is Al Nusra. They committed more than 120 suicide attacks ,Qaeda style offensive. Furthermore it has been proved that 600 European national are fighting within the ranks of Al Nusra most likely their governments are aware of that .Al Nusra receiver money and weapons from Saudi Arabia ,Qatar and Turkey ,most of the weapons ,mainly the communication devises are US made .Thus the US and the European Union are using the terrorist organisation Al Nusra to fight their war .It is not the problem of the governments in the West ,it is the problem of the civil society ,the parliaments and the media who shsres the governments the guilt of supporting terrorism.

BARACK OBAMA: We went through that. We know what it’s like to rush into a war in the Middle East without having thought it through. And there are elements within the Middle East who see this entirely through the prism of a Shia/Sunni conflict and want the United States to simply take the side of the Sunnis and that I do not think serves American interests.

that’s because a new replacement regime that is most sunni will complicate oil deals already in the works between iran & iraq that is dependant upon relationships with state actors who are shia friendly.

after all the bloodshed, can the opposition be expected to kowtow and cooperate with the very countries who have worked hard to exterminate them?

this is why europe and the u.s. refuse to topple the regime.

one cannot count upon the west to be honest brokers when they have a conflict of interest. an economic conflict of interest they are not admitting to and journalists have failed (or refuse) to challenge obama, cameron & hollande on, treating this issue as taboo.

hey mina, how are you? i’ve been making this argument for a while. i reiterated because of the obama admission which is new. i discovered the pipeline deal last year. it’s weird how some people are resistant to the idea that the u.s. might be acting on another self-serving agenda that is contrary to resolving a humanitarian crisis.

This is good, very good. Patrick Cockburn is a journalist who has been earning his living writing about the Middle East for years, but always shows contempt for the place and its people.

Now somebody’s got him! Read with pleasure.

Article: “Cockburn on Syria: Prejudice offered up as wisdom”

EXCERPT:

Patrick Cockburn, a veteran Middle East correspondent for respected media is one of many who subtly – and therefore all the more effectively – back Assad.

You can tell this partly by his carefully chosen style of understatement. When, for instance, he speaks of Assad ‘savagely repressing demonstrations’, he’s using a phrase applied last year to demonstrations in Spain, in which ‘dozens’ were injured. You’d never know that Assad used not only automatic weapons but also heavy artillery on peaceful demonstrations, injuring thousands and killing hundreds – perhaps the lucky ones, for they were not among those taken and tortured to death.

Two well-worn analyst ploys, ubiquitous in op-eds on Syria, are in evidence [In Cockburn’s writing]

Ghufran
Yes I live in Colorado a mile high country,while you live in california, a low country, I am high and you are low

Colorado is beautiful state, my favorite place is Dillon,man made lake surrounded by high peak rocky mountains snow covered,the top of the mountains are bare,because they are high the low parts of the mountains has a lot of pine trees, several water falls,the air is crispy cool, while the sky is mostly blue, several ski areas, breckenridge, winter park,you can ski even in july.
Now Ghufran, are you jealous?
we almost never had earthquake

Isn’t time for the opposition to work harder? Can someone emerge and “charm” the Russians and assure them that business with Russia would be as usual in the new Syria? Idriss won the Americans. We need one to win the Russians. And we need the greedy loud mouths in the coalition to be silenced so the coalition sounds united even if it is not. The problem is that they are all amateur and perhaps of average intelligence. I wish someone hire them a Kissinger-like adviser. One strategy is to ask for a statement of conflict of interest so all members of the coalition disclose their financial affiliation which can be used against them if they become a chaotic element. And I personally agree with the current US strategy: arm the rebels so the revolution does not die but not with extreme weapons UNTILL we assure there is no power vacuum in the day after Bashar. I am for preservation (and reform) of the institution so Syria can be kept intact. We do not want Syrians to be tainted with revenge blood on their hands. The Shabeehas is just not worth it. They will be tried according to the law. Finally, we need more revolution sheiks like Yaacoubis to be much more vocal against jihadists and beheading and sharia.

—-
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is willing to see the removal of the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, but only if it leads to a balanced government and not a dangerous power vacuum of the kind that followed Saddam Hussein’s removal in Iraq, British officials believe after two days of intensive talks at the G8 summit.

Putin blocked any reference in the subsequent communique to the removal of Assad, but British officials believe the talks have opened the way for a peace settlement if more can be done to organise the Syrian opposition forces politically and militarily.

Talks over the terms of the communique lasted until 3am. The Russians accepted the need for UN weapons inspectors to visit Syria to check on western claims that Assad has used chemical weapons.

But Putin flatly refused to have any reference in the communiqué to the nature of delegations that should be sent to the planned Geneva peace conference, insisting that this was a matter for both sides.

British officials insisted that in private Putin had declared no personal allegiance to Assad, but needed assurances that Syria would not turn into an ungoverned space on Russia’s borders if he were removed. David Cameron in his press conference at the end of the summit made repeated calls for Assad’s allies to realise that a strong army and security state would be preserved during a transition, words designed to reassure them that they would have a future after Assad.

Jamal Daniel, a Syrian-American millionaire whose parents are said to have been involved in the founding of the Ba’ath Party, is a business partner of Neil Bush, the son of former President George H.W. Bush and brother to President George W. Bush. Together Bush and Daniel have profited from Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq.

Daniel and Bush began working together in the early 1990s, according to the Financial Times. Daniel and Bush were co-chairman of a firm called Crest Investment Corp., which paid Bush $15,000 every three months. The San Francisco Chronicle says having Bush’s name as a reference helped Crest win a no-bid contract with Texas to build a liquid natural gas (LNG) storage facility worth $400 million. The contract promises to continue to yield $2 million a year.

well, well, so much for the “war of empire” claim against syria from apologists. the imperalist neocons are actually allied with assad & the regime.

have you noticed all the pundits who previously cheerleaded for war in iraq are now insisting “it’s too late” to intervene in syria? they’ve gone from “imminent threat” for iraq to “too late” for syria.

Putin supports tyrany and oppression of Syrians, ,there are some in the opposition who love Russia,but they don’t support the FSA,you would think of them as pro Assad, even that they claim they want Assad out, the best are Michael Kilo, and George Sabra, The west is abusing the rebels, Russia is an enemy of the rebels, the Arab states and Turkey,their hands are tied, in this conflict Persia is our enemy.
Assad would have gone long time ago if it was not for Persia supporting Assad by money weapons and troops(HA is Hizb Iran)

It is too late to cozy up with Russia, Syrians now has no choice but to befriend the US,it used to be a treason to do that.
I think that the opposition must convince Obama that creating northern state pose no threat to Israel

The game is over and most of the international community got aware of the terrorists in Syria.US and Europe wants them to kill and die in Syria.This is immoral ,yet the Syrian people will afford sacrifices to get rid of the medieval terrorists who aim at destroying the civilization in the Moslim countries.

France has hopes that Rowhani could become friendly with France. Hollande is desperate for rich oil allies in the region.
Saddam’s Iraq was a lucrative business for France now it is out of reach and KSA is the domain of the USA.
So they are trying to be nice to Iran…
After repeating that Iran’s presence at the conference was inacceptable, now they agree.

The East may remain temporarily a Syrian ‘waziristan’ with the Al Nusra fighters in hiding and threatening mainland Syria and Iraq with terrorists acts.
We will then probably see US drones in its sky targetting the terrorists.
Ultimately it will fall.

As for ‘sectarian battle’, Cockburn might have noted that, despite politically motivated fatwas issued by some of their clerics, Shias regard Alawites at best as Muslim heretics and certainly not as Shia.

The Taliban office that Qatar welcomed in Doha is called
the “Islamic Emirate Of Afghanistan”.

Karzai suspends US talks in row over Taliban office
…
“The president is not happy with the name of the office. We oppose the title the ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’ because such a thing doesn’t exist,” Faizi said. “The US was aware of the president’s stance.”

During a meeting on Monday of the Foreign and Arab Affairs Committee at the Shura Council, Erian called on the Foreign Ministry to send a strong message to UAE officials, in response to what he described as the “unacceptable treatment” of Egyptians in the Gulf state, saying “Egypt will not beg” and calling on “Emirati officials to come to their senses.”

He told Emirati officials that the “next tsunami will come their way from Pakistan and Iran, not Egypt,” and “to live as kings with Arabs rather than be slaves to Persians.”

Dr. David Duke shows how, not content to the human and economic catastrophe of the Iraq War and Afghanistan War, Zionists are now busy pushing the United States, Europe and the world toward an even more catastrophic war with Syria and Iran.

No one except the most immoral players on the world stage would ever back this fake revolution.

In front of the entire world Putin asked the simple question: “Are you going to back cannibals?” He judoed their entire game.

The animals that the West has backed can’t restrain their degenerate character. Atrocity after atrocity has been filmed and put on YouTube. Everyone questions not only the barbarity of the opposition but also their sanity. If you want to eat human flesh why film it? If you want to behead your opponents chanting “Allahu Akbar” why film it?

All Putin had to do during the meeting was get in front of the world’s people on camera and ask: “One does not really need to support the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their intestines in front of the public and cameras. Are these the people you want to support? Are they the ones you want to supply with weapons?”

Cameron was visibly shaken. Obama appears to have gone into a deep depression after the G8 meeting.

This economic liberalization flies in direct contradiction to any “progressive” credentials that some supposed leftists attribute to the Assad regime. The opening up of the Syrian market to foreign companies caused the imperialists to flock to Assad. For example Suncorp, the Canadian energy corporation that owns Petro-Canada, has $1.2 billion invested in the extraction of Syrian gas resources. Other significant investors into Syria include Royal Dutch Shell (UK), Total S.A. (France), China National Petroleum Company, Stroytansgaz (Russia) and the Oil and Gas Corporation (India).
[…]
The result is a Syria where the interests of the majority are neglected while the profits of big business (including that of the imperialists) are protected. Those who insist that the regime of Bashar Al-Assad is anti-imperialist have a terribly delusional view of Syrian society.

Assad’s relationship to Israeli and US imperialism

Hafez Al-Assad first, and later his son and current ruler Bashar, regularly entered into alliances with the Western imperialists. They have played an openly counter-revolutionary role in repressing mass uprisings in Lebanon in league with regional imperialist powers, were open partners with George Bush Sr.’s invasion of Iraq in 1991 and have played a collaborative role in the so-called “War on Terror”. Far from the image that some on the left attribute to Assad as an anti-imperialist, he has been a regional partner with imperialism and has played a destructive role in relation to mass left-wing movements in the region, most notably in Lebanon.

During the Lebanese civil war, from 1975-1990, the Syrian regime and its proxies engaged in a direct offensive to repress the revolutionary left-wing movements, particularly represented by the left-wing Palestinian groups and the Lebanese Communist Party. Assad supported the right-wing Maronite regime and the far-right paramilitary squads that were used to drown the movement in blood.

From the standpoint of the Syrian regime, the mass left-wing movements in a neighbouring country represented a threat that could spread to Syria. Assad also wanted to establish and consolidate his influence in Lebanon. The Syrian military and Syrian-backed local groups directly intervened in the civil war. They also actively encouraged sectarian differences, much as Assad has done at home in Syria. During the mid-to-late 1970s, they were able to repress the Lebanese Communist Party and the Palestinian revolutionary groups. After succeeding in destroying left-wing groups in Lebanon, they turned to destroying the Syrian left groups, including the Communist Labour Party and the Syrian Communist Party.

Throughout the civil war in Lebanon, both Syria and Israel established significant control over the country. Though both Syria and Israel had tense and at times conflicting interests, they united to share power in Lebanon and to drown the revolutionary movements in blood.

This willingness to come into partnership with imperialism was also demonstrated when Hafez Al-Assad made an alliance with George Bush Senior during the invasion of Iraq in 1991 following Saddam’s entry into Kuwait. Syrian troops supported the US-led invasion of Iraq during the Gulf War. The Syrian military forces did not enter into active conflict, instead giving logistical support and providing reserve troops for the invading forces. Over 100,000 Iraqi troops were killed in this imperialist war.

Since the “War on Terror” began in 2001, the Syrian regime has presented itself as a regional ally of the United States. The United States and Canadian governments began to target and observe certain terrorist groups. These efforts included the wider targeting and oppression of people from the Middle East. The Assad regime, with its experience repressing the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, was seen as a useful ally in these efforts.

The Alawites have been officially granted the status of Shias by respected Iranian cleric Moussa Sadr later killed by Qaddafi .
Iran will certainly treat them as Shias.
In any case Zoroastrians, Christians and Sunnis in Iran are treated as all other Iranians. They are “ahl al ketab”
The ones that are ostracized are the Bahais as it is a religion that does not recognize neither the Bible nor the Koran, nor the Avesta.

In 1976, the Syrian regime intervened militarily in Lebanon on the side of the Phalanges and Israel. The record is available (from Henry Kissinger’s memoirs to the memoirs of Israel leaders): Syria and Israel reached an understanding in Lebanon.

The understanding was that Syrian troops would enter Lebanon to defeat Israel’s enemies provided that the Syrian troops stay north of the Litani river.

The Syrian troops strictly adhered to the agreement all the way until their humiliating withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005. Never once did Syrian troops dare cross south of the Litani river no matter how brutal and savage Israeli attacks on South Lebanon were. The Syrian regime intervened to smash a promising revolutionary movement that would have changed the map of the Arab East.

Giuliano Ibrahim Delnevo, 24, converted to Islam and joined the opposition fighters. Under investigation for terrorism

Giuliano Ibrahim Delnevo has died in Syria after converting to Islam and joining the ranks of the rebels. The news was reported by Il Giornale newspaper, quoting sources in the intelligence services and ministry of the interior. Genoa-born Mr Delnevo, 24, is believed to have entered Syria across the Turkish border last year and then linked up with volunteers from Chechnya. He is understood to have been killed in Syria and identified thanks to the Italian passport he was carrying. Mr Delnevo was under investigation in Genoa on suspicion of enlistment for the purposes of terrorism. Investigators are seeking to find out whether Mr Delnevo trained in Italy.

Syrian Sunnis have a much better choice of retreat for all brand of Sunnism: MB in Egypt, Qatar,Tunisia, Salafist in KSA ,moderates in Turkey and the UAE, Kurds in Iraq.
Of course they will be more then welcome in EU and the USA.

In the last thread I highlighted something Zoo wanted to ignore and it was this:

The UN report also accused the Syrian armed forces and intelligence services of torturing minors, mostly boys, with electric shock, beatings and sexual assault. Some minors, related to opposition fighters, were held for ransom to force parents or other relatives to surrender, the report said. One 16-year-old boy from Idlib reported witnessing a 14-year-old friend sexually assaulted and killed while in government detention, the report said.

(majed, I love CO , it is a great display of how powerful and beautiful mother nature is and I appreciate what I have, however, I do not respect hypocrites who call for violence and sanctions while they sit behind a computer sipping coffee and counting how much money they have, Syrians like you are similar to the NeoCons who sent thousands of Americans to their death in Iraq while their kids went to ivy league schools and Wall street firms, people like that make me sick to my stomach)

Knowing what they will face if caught, why then are the rebels still recruiting and sending children on fighting and spying missions?
Are they running out of fighters or are they just abusing the naivety and innocence of these kids to send them on missions they are too coward to do themselves.

Since uou are so close to them, you should tell them to stop brainwashing and abusing these kids. They should leave them in safety with their mothers. War is not a place for kids. I condemn all kind of abuses of children.

I am not close to the rebels. I do not believe in an armed conflict. I always warned on militarizing the revolution because your regime always wanted that, since it was the only way it can survive this long.

That being said what you said is somewhat right, those recruiting children into war are explicitly guilty in whatever happens to those kids. That however does NOT excuse the Assadi militia raping and torturing them, and the rapists and torturers that you call your heroes are the lowest denominator on this earth including those that call their disgusting actions heroic.

The Syrian troops strictly adhered to the agreement all the way until their humiliating withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005. Never once did Syrian troops dare cross south of the Litani river no matter how brutal and savage Israeli attacks on South Lebanon were.

Omen,

And Hezbollah. What about them? Did they cross the Litani River? Did they arm themselves to the teeth with the support of Syria?

What are you complaining about?

The reason I hate Assad is exactly because he supports endless war. Not only against Israel, but against anyone who throws darts at his poster. Israel is no longer in Lebanon, so you’re not satisfied?

Sami is it any wonder your side has failed so? You demonize anyone who supports Assad.

I tried to talk to you but you could not handle it.

Syrian soldiers are patriots defending their nation from terrorist attack. If the terrorists use child soldiers and those children end up dead who’s fault is that? Assad’s? Is that your logic? God gave you a better mind than that brother. Without Nusra, and their allies, there would be nothing left of the enemy.

Maybe they can appoint you to negotiate at Geneva 2. You’d have as much chance as anyone else they send.

What difference it makes if they were pro or anti Shah, or if they were secular or religious? Don’t you think non religious may have more objective assessment. Call your freinds and ask them and tell me what they say. I’ll believe you. I have heard that from more than one source. Jews and Christians are treated better than Sunnis in Iran.

Revenir
Hamza Khatib was mutilated alive by your heroes criminals,and chidren killers, this is what you are proud of.

Zoo you try to beautify persian treatment of Sunni, why is it there is no Sunni mosque in Tehran?,while there was a mosque for non moslem abu Lualuaa almajosi? building a mosque for such murderer who never converted to Islam was only done to insult Sunni.

Tara
This is problem with ME people are treated as,Sunni,Shia,Alawite,Jew,Christians,not human being.
Separate church from state, then there could be peace, until then there will be bloody wars.
Less religions, more education,Jihad against poverty,illiteracy,social injustice, not against unbelievers.
Too much effort spent to defend religion not building better future…
if these Jihadis spent as much effort and time into education, 50% of problem could be easily solved.
How come is it that Most Moslem countries are among the most intolerant one in the world, most illiterate ones?
Problem starts home…
Is it Shias,Kufar fault that many people cant write and read??

The so-called Free Syrian Army has asked Israeli regime to attack Syria and help them bring down the government.

According to official SANA news agency, one of the leaders of the militant al-Furqan Brigade which has been fighting against Syria as part of the Free Syrian Army has pledged that they will pave the way for Israeli forces to do “whatever they want” if they agree to enter Syria.

The al-Furqan leader who is known as Abu Ja’afar said that if Israeli forces engage in war with Syrian soldiers, his fighters will allow them to crush the army.

Revenir
your sources are known to lie, you deny facts,proven to be true, and make up news,Bit Zet Wa Tolhosh,so your opnion is worthless and nonsense.
In TEHRAN there is no mosque for Sunnis. Hamza father was fiasco,the father was scared to death about his other children,hamzeh was mutilated alive. BTW, what did your heroes do with the sex organ they cut out?, did they eat it?

Yesterday, June 18, a coward sociopath remotely detonated an IED attached to the car of Dr. Seham Dannoun, with her in it. Professor Dannoun was rushed to the hospital, where physicians were forced to perform bilateral above the knee amputations on her, as her femurs were shattered, her musculature decimated, and her veins and arteries completely gone.

Dr. Dannoun is the most recent of leading Syrian professors targeted for assassination, including professors of cardio-thoracic surgery, and architectural and nuclear engineering. Additionally, these barbarian friends who Cameron, Hollande, Obomba, and McCain would not want as neighbors, have bombed university students, in one monstrous attack against Aleppo University killing more than 80 students injuring 160 in January 2013, another attack on Damascus University killing 20 architectural pupils, in another barbarous attack and five medical engineering students in another.

The brutal targeting, for assassination, of brilliant minds, is the perverse attempt to extinguish the light of humanity. It has been done by the most vicious, during the worst dark ages in history. It is a heinous attempt to blot out the future, to exterminate humanity’s incessant hope.

Dr. Dannoun has a daunting rehabilitation recovery before her. She will, at times, suffer pain that medications cannot control (hopefully, the bombed of the Syrian state-owned pharmaceutical factory, by the NATO proteges has been sufficiently repaired to be making necessary quantities of narcotics for the Syrian people.). She will have to survive such pain, and anger, and depression, and a terrible sense of loss of self, to know that the savages have not succeeded in destroying her mind.

Education in Saudi Arabia forms much of its base from religious material based on Wahhabi teachings. From a very young age, students are taught that Shiites are not Muslims and that Shiism is a conspiracy from the Jews, and so Shiites are worthy of death (Al-Hassan). This hatred towards Shiites runs so deep that government scholars,
…

Discrminations in the workforce
…
Shiite professors in universities often face harassment from students and faculty alike, simply because of their faith (Al-Hassan). Shiites are disqualified as witnesses in court, cannot serve as judges in ordinary court, and are banned from high-ranking government or security posts, including becoming pilots in Saudi Airlines (Business Week). Shiites are also banned from gaining admission to military academies (Human Rights Watch)

Religious discriminations

Shiites are often banned from building mosques and other religious centers, and sometimes perform Friday prayers in various homes (Al-Hassan).
In the Eastern city of Al-Khobar, whose population is predominately Shia, mosques and prayer centers were closed, beginning in July 2008

==================================================Treatment of Sunnis in Iran

“About 9%[1] of the Iranian population are Sunni Muslims – mostly Kurds in the northwest, Arabs and Balochs in the southwest and southeast, and a smaller number of Persians, Pashtuns and Turkmens in the northeast.[30]”

“(At the Parliament) Sunni Muslims have no specific reserved seats, but can take part in the ordinary election process at all constitutional levels.[29] Sunni members of parliament are mostly from areas with strong Sunni ethnic minorities like Baluchistan.[29]”

There are Sunni mosques in all these areas where Sunnis are concentrated. There are no Sunni mosque in Teheran. It is yet to determine what is the Sunni population of Teheran.
In 2011 a request was made to Khamenei by the Sunnis MP to build one Sunni Mosque in Iranian. They also requested the right to access to the presidency. It has not yet be responded.

I have not seen any Right Watch group reporting any discrimination at schools or in the workforce for Sunnis.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Palestine considered that “the Zio-American conspiracy in the Arab nation is being implemented on ground, and its basic role is diverting the path of the Arab Spring, from a “spring” which serves the benefits of our people and cause, to a “spring” which preserves the security of the Zionist enemy; for the Arab Spring has been controlled by the US, which is directing it towards its foreign and devilish goals in order to protect Israel and Judaize Al-Aqsa mosque, and this is being established on ground by the unprecedented US support.”

In a statement, the brigade pointed out that “the Zionist occupation has burned everything, yet we have never heard the Arab League call for arming defenseless people who have been protecting their land for centuries, neither has it called for imposing a ban on the Zionist aircrafts violating Palestine, Lebanon, and territorial waters in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.

In parallel, it wondered: “Haven’t you seen the corpses of our children and women fully burned in dozens, before the Arab Spring in 2008 and after the Arab Spring in 2012? What have you done other than sending expired medicines with some rotten bedcovers? What have you done for people who have been under a siege for six years? We haven’t heard the nation’s clerics issuing applicable Fatwas which call for Jihad in Palestine until ending the occupation.”

The statement added: “The truth which everyone should clearly know is that the basic supporter which arms the Palestinian resistance and challenges Western countries which have supported the Zionist enemy during the second Intifada (uprising) is of three parts: the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Syrian Arab Republic, and at the top is Hezbollah in Lebanon, under the leadership of Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, who extended arms and ammunition, and exerted all efforts to strengthen the capabilities of the Palestinian resistance, so thank you Hezbollah.”

A meeting of the 11 countries making up the mini-FOS is taking place in Qatar’s fancy hotels. Supposedly Selim Idriss will present the rebels’ shopping list of weapons to the US, France and the UK foreign ministers.

After browsing through the list, will the FOS have to guts to transmit to the opposition the G8 message that they have no choice than to accept to participate to the Conference despite the fact that Bashar al Assad will remain in power during the conference and may remain in power after the conference?

Foreign ministers from the Friends of Syria group of countries will meet at the weekend in Qatar to discuss support for the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad, the State Department said Wednesday, dpa reported.

The meeting of 11 foreign ministers – from the United States, European countries and regional allies – will coincide with an official visit to Qatar by French President Francois Hollande.

The foreign ministers will discuss support for the Syrian opposition and efforts to find a political solution to the conflict, spokeswoman State Department Jen Psaki said in a statement.

French media reported that the group, which does not include Russia or China, would consider requests by the rebels for weapons to fight al-Assad’s regime.

Diplomatic sources in Paris told dpa the talks would cover “all” aspects of the conflict.

Tara
You are the master of deception.
you are silly cat.
What a civil war in Yugoslavia has to do with?
Crimes have been committed by all sides,just like in Syria.There is never is just 1 side that commits all atrocities…
Illiteracy rates,poor education, in Pakistan,Malaysia,Somalia,Sudan,Mali,Niger,some other places.
Serbian,Russian, literacy rate is about 98%-100% this is just cold pipe facts …
You just enjoying destroying other countries to rubles by your beloved NATO forces…
I btw also enjoyed Air force Liberation of Al Qusair…

The time has come for all, in addition to revolutionaries seeking social justice be trained on the roads of diplomacy and constructive dialogue to reach their interests! It’s the moment of truth that comes after a big waste of energies without benefit! It is the speak Energy and not the clash Energy!Peace be upon you!

I went there to meet a woman named Ibtisam Ali Aboud, who had fled her home after her husband — a retired Alawite officer named Muhsin — was killed in February by rebels. Ibtisam is a woman of 50, but she looked 20 years older, her face a pale canvas of anxious lines over her long, black mourning cloak. Her son was with her, a timid-looking 17-year-old named Jafar. We spoke in a dingy, sparsely furnished room, with a picture of a bearded Alawite saint on the wall. “We never used to feel any distinction between people of different sects,” Ibtisam told me. “Now they are ready to slaughter us.” Her husband’s killer was a car mechanic named Ayham, she said, who had eaten at their table and casually borrowed money from her husband only 10 days earlier, promising to pay it back soon. Someone had been slipping notes under their door — “Die, Alawite scum,” “Get out, regime thugs” — and sectarian killings and kidnappings were growing more common; even Muhsin had narrowly escaped being taken captive by armed men. But he refused to listen to his wife’s warnings when she told him that Ayham was working with Sunni rebel gunmen. “Ayham is my friend,” he had told her. “This is Syria, not Iraq.” One night he went out to run an errand and never came home. They found his body in the family car the next day, a bullet hole in his head. The family’s small auto-repair shop was burned to the ground days later. Jafar said that he was on his way home from there when five men surrounded him. “We will cut you all to pieces if you don’t get out,” the men said. “You will follow your father to the grave.”

What the west or anyone else does is neither here nor there. Even if the whole world remained indifferent or stood against the Syrian People’s cause, it wouldn’t make any difference. The brave and determined people will struggle on.

I’ve seen with my own eyes the videos of the mass rallies swearing oath before God Almighty, vowing martyrdom or victory. They weren’t joking. The Syrian people are not for turning. I genuinely believe this. This struggle cannot be stopped, othewise it would have ceased/fizzled out long ago.

Some people on here are revealing in their analysis, desperate wishful thinking.

Heaven will not abandon the terribly suffering syrian people. We are taught ‘beware of the prayer of the oppressed’.

Sissy Graham would p**s his pants if he actually were flown into Syria and dropped in the middle of the city of Aleppo or Homs, where the Syrian Army has been mopping the floor with the so called ‘rebels’ he and his cronies Traitor McCain, John Kerry and company have been funneling arms and funds in some stupid move to topple Assad. He’d probably croak from all of shock of it!

When I was in Avaaz a sunni town in Iran near to the Iraqi border I had an argileh in an local cafe, near the David grave mosque. The folks there told me that more than 50 % of their children are out of work, they have a hard time finding a job because they are sunni. I had no time and chance to find out more about it, but their sentiment seemed genuine. In this region the disastrous war with Iraq was all still visible, roads still broken, burned out tanks on the fields, mine fields still in place. It looked like the state did not care so much about that, at least such destruction is hard to find near Tehran, even though in the war it was also badly damaged.

“To many Syrians, Mezze 86 is a terrifying place, a stronghold for regime officers and the ruthless paramilitary gunmen known as shabiha, or “ghosts.” These are the men accused of carrying out much of the torture and killing that has left more than 90,000 people dead since the Syrian uprising began two years ago. ”

““Prison is for real men” is an old saying we have in Syria, and one that I kept repeating to myself as I paced anxiously back and forth across my small, dingy cell in an almost hypnotic trance of meditation.”

In their letter, the Sunni MPs asked why no Sunni Muslims are appointed as ministers, provincial governors, ambassadors or to other high positions.

They also criticised the authorities for not allowing a mosque to be built in Tehran for the Sunni Muslim community. They said it was disgraceful for Iran’s Islamic government that followers of Sunni Islam in the capital should go to foreign embassies for prayers.

The 18 MPs who represent Iran’s Kurds, Baluchis and other Sunni Muslims, also said that the government should stop appointing Shia clerics to run religious institutions in Sunni areas.

Sunni Muslims in Iran complain that in some respect their situation is worse than that of the Jews and Christians in the country because Sunnis are not recognised as a minority.
—/
Sunni Muslims banned from holding own Eid prayers in Tehran
Security police block access to houses rented by Sunni minority for worship

Sunnis cite the lack of a Sunni mosque in Tehran, Iran’s capital and largest city, despite the presence of over 1 million Sunnis there,[111] and despite the presence of Christian churches, as a prominent example of this discrimination. Although reformist President Mohammad Khatami promised during his election campaign to build a Sunni mosque in Tehran, none was built during his eight years in office. The president explained the situation by saying Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would not agree to the proposal.[112

A UN human rights report states that:

…information indicates Sunnis, along with other religious minorities, are denied by law or practice access to such government positions as cabinet minister, ambassador, provincial governor, mayor and the like, Sunni schools and mosques have been destroyed, and Sunni leaders have been imprisoned, executed and assassinated. The report notes that while some of the information received may be difficult to corroborate there is a clear impression that the right of freedom of religion is not being respected with regard to the Sunni minority.[113][114]
Members of the ‘Balochistan Peoples Front’ claim that Sunnis are systematically discriminated against educationally by denial of places at universities, politically by not allowing Sunnis to be army generals, ambassadors, ministers, prime minister, or president, religiously insulting Sunnis the media, economic discrimination by not giving import or export licenses for Sunni businesses while the majority of Sunnis are left unemployed.[115]

France and UK economy are in shambles, they want money and investment from Qatar and KSA. Emir Tamim is a francophile, no wonder Hollande himslef is going to Qatar.
They are beggars as they were beggars from Saddam Hossein and Qaddafi before turning against them.

Both of these countries are genetically colonialists, they can’t help it. They have badly marked all the countries they have divided and colonized.

Israel selling military wares to Mideast countries, Britain says
Report by British government agency reveals that Egypt, Algeria, Pakistan, Morocco and UAE were among clients of Israeli defense industries.

REVENIRE is either an unsophisticated and inept propagandist, or he is a double agent, helping the cause against Assad and his allies.

Choosing to draw attention in #101 to Putin’s dumb, childlike and thuggish performance is highlighting how out of his depth Putin is on the world stage, how unsophisticated the Russian “leader” and his advisers are, and how they have absolutely nothing rational to say about Syria.

I actually laughed at the sight of the little criminal saying those things to other national leaders. It made UK’s Cameron look like an intellectual giant and leader of the universe with his simple response to Putin.

You might be not much help to Team Assad, shooting your cheap toy gun and water pistol into your own feet and surroundings, but you keep coming up with all kinds of things that endorse the reasons for the revolution.

Militants of the fanatical Islamist group Jebhat an-Nusra operating in Syria set fire to a Syrian Christian church in Deir ez-Zor on the Euphrates.

According to the Syrian news agency SANA, the fire destroyed the interior of the church and its relics, but there have been no reports about the fate of the parishioners or clergy.

Last October, the Islamic fanatics who fight on the side of the armed opposition blew up a Latin church in a city in the east of Syria.

Over the last two years of conflict, the Syrian “rebels” have destroyed dozens of churches and mosques mostly in Homs and Aleppo and have even destroyed an ancient synagogue in Jubara, a suburb of Damascus.

Also I was disappointed you do not understand Arabic. How can you do your job not knowing the language? You realize that not knowing Arabic makes one looks like a paid propagandist? It makes one loses all credibility.

I doubt the regime has Dollars to pay for propagandists so is it the Iranian Lobby? But what do I know? The regime may have stashed hold and money under the “Blatta”. Ask Amira what a “Blatta” means if you do not have a quick translation service. I am sure she knows.

Being a paid propagandist explains the politeness, the lack of sectarian hatred, and the emotional detachment towards humanity. It explains it all.

Also I was disappointed you do not understand Arabic. How can you do your job not knowing the language? You realize that not knowing Arabic makes one looks like a paid propagandist? It makes one loses all credibility.
I doubt the regime has Dollars to pay for propagandists so is it the Iranian Lobby? But what do I know? The regime may have stashed gold and money under the “Blatta”. Ask Amira what a “Blatta” means if you do not have a quick translation service. I am sure she knows.
Being a paid propagandist explains the politeness, the lack of sectarian hatred, and the emotional detachment towards humanity. It explains it all.

Only last week Dawoud was flooding SC with commentary and he disappeared again. Anyway, Dawoud I just wanted to congratulate you on the PhD now that you have joined an elite group. To remind you Dawoud:

1. A person with a PhD should be a critical thinker.
2. A person who earned a PhD should evaluate, analyze and have the ability to concur or reject ideas or misconceptions.

I was going to ask you a few questions but I will wait until you are back. These were questions I was so keen to ask my dear friend Visitor before he was banned (Gosh how much I miss Visitor) and our resident Doctor will not be able to answer them as they require critical thinking.

I congratulate all who took the time and the risk to help Syrian refugees, good deeds will pay off especially if those who are behind those deeds do not advertise their charity work or totally lose the credit from it by helping Syrians kill each other in the name of self defense. When Mush’aal of Hamas was asked about his organization’s troubled relations with the Syrian regime he said:
” we were with them when they were on the side of al-haqq but we can not be with them if they were on the side of al-batel”.
(whether he was sincere or not, that is another matter)
Inciting violence and helping this war to stay alive is pure evil that will neutralize any dividends earned by charity work, majed.
At the end of the day, it is up to Allah, not me or you, to judge our work, I do not hate the people I disagree with, I prefer to do what I can to stop the hate and the violence.

I have not seen any of your supposed “acknowledgment” of Saudis’s racism and segregation of Shias.
You’re very good in setting up traps and playing the innocent. Naively, I fell in many of them. No more.

when did I ever admire KSA and its human rights abuse? Have I not called for Saudi spring after the Syrian spring? Have I not on more than one occasions shown extreme disdain to the retarded sheikhs and their king? Where did I contest your post in regard to the discrimination against Shiaa in the KSA?

I am setting no traps. Not to you and not to anyone else. I ask honest questions and I express honest emotions. It is your judgment to believe it or not.

Landis Yea Habib,
it’s a wishful thinking for any of you to grasp Assad will be buzzing one year from now. The regime is failing by the day.. We Syrians only see One Syria, one united country under a new Syrian Civil constitution. The Alawaits, Sunni and Christians thugs will be annihilate if they try to repel

FYI the last time before this documentary was filmed Frank and his cameraman were attacked in Saudi, he barley survived and is paralyzed from waist down while his cameraman did not make it.

He goes into the Shia discrimination and what really shocked me got a higher up Prince (Abd Al-Aziz bin Salman if my memory serves me right) admit to the mistreatment the Shia suffer from. Another thing that really shocked me is to learn that Saudi has a large Ismaili sect in the South close to the Yemeni border.

Saudi is no paradise and suffers from a lot of backwardness but from my interaction with a lot of them here in Montreal where their government has sent them on full paid scholarships to McGill University is that there is a lot of promise, and that Saudi spring you mentioned is in my humble opinion going to be lead by the Saudi female body which is by far the most discriminated group in Saudi.

See Sami – kids like that. I am sure that gun in the little devil’s hand can kill me just as good as his bearded uncle’s can. If the army captures child soldiers what should they do? Make them a hot dog and say “all is forgiven”??

Saudi Arabia panics at the perspective of a victory of Bashar al Assad. It would rather have Syria totally destroyed than such a thing to happen. It is a matter of honor and survival for the Kingdom . Its army is useless, they want the US to intervene militarily otherwise it is a ‘nightmare’

War in Syria increasingly seen by Riyadh as fulcrum of wider geopolitical struggle with Iran

….
It is a war increasingly seen in Riyadh as the fulcrum of a wider geopolitical struggle with Iran, a country it believes is radical, expansionist and militant, and a potential threat to Saudi Arabia itself.

“If the Syrian government wins, it will prove to other Arab countries that Iran is able to protect its allies in the region. This will undermine Western alliances and Western allies,” said Abdulaziz al-Sager, head of the Gulf Research Centre in Jeddah.

Since the fall of Syrian rebel stronghold Qusair this month, there has been growing unease in Saudi Arabia’s dusty capital Riyadh about the opposition’s chances.

Riyadh has been backing the mainly Sunni rebels with arms, money and political support, while Western countries, above all the United States, have given mixed signals, calling for Assad’s downfall but refusing so far to send arms or use force.

The Western position changed dramatically last week when US President Barack Obama signalled that Washington would arm the rebels. But he has not yet explained how or when that might begin, and Saudis are still sceptical of Western support.
…
While more Saudi-supplied weaponry is likely headed to the Syrian opposition, there is a growing view among senior Saudis that it is no longer enough to just give the rebels arms and advice, diplomats in the Gulf say.

Instead, the four men running Saudi Arabia’s Syria policy – King Abdullah and three of his nephews – Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan and National Security Council deputy chief Prince Salman bin Sultan – want more US involvement, said the sources.

“They’ve been saying for a while the international community is not doing enough in Syria but they thought the opposition could manage. They are really worried about the attitude in Washington,” said one diplomatic source in the Gulf.

STEEL CLAWS

So worrying is the situation, as seen in Riyadh, that King Abdullah cut short his summer leave in Morocco to fly home on Friday, warning of the “repercussions of events in the region”. The suggestion of concern prompted a sharp drop in Saudi stocks.

Underpinning Saudi worries is the participation in Syria of Shia militia from neighbouring countries, particularly Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraq’s Abu Fadhl al-Abbas Brigade, which Prince Turki al-Faisal, another former Saudi spy chief, this week described in an interview as Iran’s “steel claws”.

Influential Saudi commentator Jamal Khashoggi, in an article for newspaper al-Hayat, painted what for Saudis is a frightening picture of the Gulf after an Assad victory. Iran would threaten Saudi security and angry Sunni youth would respond by turning to al Qaeda, the militant network that is as hostile to Shias as it is to the West.

“A nightmare, don’t you think?” he wrote.

Since Hezbollah started to trumpet its involvement in Syria, Sunni clerics, including some from Saudi Arabia, have used increasingly sectarian rhetoric in their attacks on Assad.

Yet while Saudi Arabia’s official Wahhabi school of Islam sees Shias as heretical, the kingdom’s rulers also see sectarian language as potentially dangerous, said one diplomatic source in the Gulf.

They believe openly sectarian rhetoric can backfire by helping mobilise Shias in support of Assad as much as it fires up the rebellion. Worse still, it alienates potential backers in the West and draws Sunni militants to the conflict that can later pose a threat to Riyadh.
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Saudi officials have repeatedly warned that citizens who go to fight face prison upon their return, and have tried to funnel charitable donations for Syria through state channels to avoid cash going to militant groups.

CONSTRAINTS

While some Saudis, including Khashoggi, are calling for the kingdom to take tougher independent action against Assad, diplomats in the Gulf say its role is constrained by its limited capacity for sustained military action.

Although the Saudi airforce is well equipped, it performed poorly in a brief border war with a Yemeni rebel group in 2010, US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks said at the time.

And, while Saudi forces engaged Iraq’s army in the 1991 Gulf War, they fought only on Saudi soil. Striking an Arab, Muslim country is problematic for the birthplace of Islam, which aims to be perceived as neutral custodian of Islam’s holy places.

With limits on what it can do itself, it needs Washington to help fight its battles.

“Russia remains committed. Iran remains committed. The Western allies are not committed to the degree and level you would like to see. That raises an important issue. In this way Assad can win,” said Sage

One other option is to keep Syria one, support the Syrian Arab Army that restored peace and security to Lebanon a free hand to do the same in Syria and make a deal with Syria to be neutral like Switzerland, one other question for Joshua, what will happen to the Christians in your plans, do they die, get American Nationalities or chose the states they want to be in, i can see them joining the Alawat and taking the coast and the mountains and Homs, one other option come to mind,how about having two states , one religous state that apply Sharia laws and one Secular state that apply civil laws, and let the people chose where they want to live and give land to the secular state in the coast and the mountains, Homs , and Damascus, put the Alawat, Christians and the secular Sunni there and leave the rest for the religous group, that is if the people of Aleppo do not want to join the secular state which i think they would. i think at the end of the day it is going to be like Iraq, low intensity war for a long time, but believe that not just the US has a say in Syria, Russia in history has been the protector of the Christians in the Mid East especially in Syria and will not let them vanish.

There is no conclusive evidence for the implication of Hezbollah in the July 2012 bombing in Bulgarian resort city of Burgas, stated new Bulgarian Foreign Affairs Minister Kristian Vigenin.

This is a significant backstep from the February statement by ex Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, who had said that investigations gave Bulgarian authorities sufficient reasons to believe that the attack was organized by “Hezbollah’s military wing.”

“The evidence is not unequivocal, despite the fact that there are indirect indications about it,” the Foreign Minister stated for the Bulgarian National Radio Wednesday, adding that the authorities would continue to gather evidence.

Vigenin also informed that there was no final decision on the proposal to blacklist the militant wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

There is no conclusive evidence for the implication of Hezbollah in the July 2012 bombing in Bulgarian resort city of Burgas, stated new Bulgarian Foreign Affairs Minister Kristian Vigenin.

This is a significant backstep from the February statement by ex Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, who had said that investigations gave Bulgarian authorities sufficient reasons to believe that the attack was organized by “Hezbollah’s military wing.”

“The evidence is not unequivocal, despite the fact that there are indirect indications about it,” the Foreign Minister stated for the Bulgarian National Radio Wednesday, adding that the authorities would continue to gather evidence.

Vigenin also informed that there was no final decision on the proposal to blacklist the militant wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

This video is a clear display of the abuses made on children through brainwashing by the Islamist rebels.
These rebels are criminals to convince an innocent little boy to become a martyr.
In addition they hope that this video will convince others kids to join.
That’s what the Syria revolution has become in the hands of the opposition: a vicious machine that does not spare children

The racist actions of the Israeli parastatal, the Jewish National Fund, together with various other Israeli state institutions to forcibly remove the Palestinians and Bedouins from their legitimate homes is yet another repeat of the ongoing injustice meted out by the Israeli Defence Forces, etc …

I have had the opportunity to visit both, the “South Africa Forest” and the “Ambassador’s Forest” in Israel where trees are reportedly planted in the name of South Africa. In regard to the latter case, my queries, to the Israeli Foreign Ministry officials, have gone unanswered for over a year.

Barack Obama is not after a military defeat of Bashar Assad
June 20, 2013 12:50 AM
By David Ignatius

Critics are correct when they argue that President Barack Obama doesn’t have a strategy for military victory in Syria. The reality is that despite his decision last week to arm the opposition there, Obama is still playing for a negotiated diplomatic transition. It’s a confusing policy with multiple objectives: Obama wants to bolster moderate opposition forces under Gen. Salim Idriss until they’re strong enough to negotiate a transition government. He wants to counter recent offensives by Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed forces aiding President Bashar Assad. And he wants to keep Arab nations from bolting the U.S.-led coalition backing Idriss and instead arming radical jihadists.

Obama doesn’t want the rebels to overrun Damascus if the jihadists are the strongest faction. As he said in his interview broadcast Monday with PBS’ Charlie Rose, “One of the challenges that we have is that some of the most effective fighters within the opposition have been those who frankly are not particularly [friendly] towards the United States.” To counter the jihadists’ influence, Obama has been trying to build up Idriss, so far with limited success.

I never had a problem that arab states have close business contacts and needs with Israel, for me that was always clear that many arab states have a double strategy, in security and business matters they have and maintain secret contacts (even the Saudis) and on the other hand there is the wordly side in which they distant themselves from Israel and try to make the world believe Israel is the biggest enemy of them. I would say it like Voltaire: When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

“Due to the armed conflict situation in Syria, the conditions are no longer present to ensure the conservation and protection of the Outstanding Universal Value of the six World Heritage properties,” a UNESCO document said.

Syria has six World Heritage Sites: the ancient cities of Damascus, Bosra and Aleppo, the oasis of Palmyra, the castles of Crac des Chevaliers and Qal’at Salah El-Din — also known as the Fortress of Saladin — and the ancient villages of northern Syria.

All six were placed on the list of World Heritage in Danger by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization committee at its annual meeting in Phnom Penh.”

Obama, FSA or whoever it be must not decide to kill and exterminate the Alawites, but the criminals. If most of them happen to be Alawites, we have no problem. There is no prejudices we should exterminate all the criminals even if they are alawites or sunnis.

Do they think that Allies should have negotiated with Hitler to end the madness of Nazism? And in the same way they think that syrian people should negotiate with a mafia criminal under the influence of God like Assad?

Or simply because the arab people are inferior and do not deserve freedom and dignity consequently arabs do not deserve to make a revolution, behead the dictator and change the status quo…

Or maybe it is because Israel is controlling the foreign policy of Germany? Come germans stop joking and laughing at us. You may think yourself intelligent but we are not stupid.

I never had a problem that arab states have close business contacts and needs with Israel, for me that was always clear that many arab states have a double strategy, in security and business matters they have and maintain secret contacts (even the Saudis) and on the other hand there is the wordly side in which they distant themselves from Israel and try to make the world believe Israel is the biggest enemy of them. I would say it like Voltaire: When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

Juergen,

I’ve been reading your posts and I agree with your stand against Assad and your opinions pertaining to this horrible situation. So when I read the beginning of your post:

166. Juergen said:

The ugly truth…

I was a bit surprised. If there is anything positive about this revolution, it is to open the eyes of the arab and muslim world (who once supported Assad) to see the real face of terrorism.

There is no excuse for war. Point. The opposition is putting all sorts of conditions so the war does not stop. Obviously they worry that ultimately Bashar al Assad will be re-elected easily in 2014. So they come up with the excuse that ‘he has blood on his hands’. The FSA and their Al Nusra allies as well as the inept SNC, its military and political allies have as much blood on their hands too and they seem to want more. They seem to want to win at any cost. It is simply a matter of ego.

I repeat it, I am against war because in a war, all parties loose their mind and become indifferent to human lives. That has always been the case from Hiroshima to Vietnam to the Iran-Iraq war, all supported by the ‘peace loving’ west

Instead of counting the horrors of the war, shedding tears on children victims and putting the blame exclusively on the SAA, why don’t express your position on the peace efforts that the opposition is flatly boycotting?
Unless you hope for a miracle, for now this conference is the only way to stop this insanity.

For me, while the opposition is rejecting its participation to the conference, they are the only one to bear the responsibility for all the death and violence happening in Syria, children or adults. Point.

The idea that was mentioned in Times magazine and echoed by the Syrian puppet Abdul Bari Atwan is pure nonsense, it is about coup against Assad,this will never happen and waiting for it is waste of time.
US ran a meeting in Washington that included Kerry and Dempsey, Kerry idea to bomb all airports,was a good Idea but rejected by Dempsey,on military basis,Kerry idea of Geneva 2 has been postponed by Obama,,it seems that Kerry has been sidelined.
US is unable to argue against arming the Rebels as HA intervened in Syria and several Shiaa Iraqis are coming to Syria to fight along Assad, Anti Tanks weapons may have reached the rebels, several Assad tanks has been destroyed and the Attack against Halab,that HA and Assad has promissed has been stopped.

Things on ground are changing,,and it is expected to change more after June 30.

The French diplomat revealed that there are two conditions on Iran’s prospective attendance of Geneva II.

He said, “First, Iran must agree with the contents of the Geneva I statement which stipulates the formation of a transitional government with full authority, including responsibility for the armed forces and security services, and which includes members from the regime and opposition, particularly as this is the basis for the current talks in preparation for Geneva II. Secondly, Iran must stop acting as a party to the conflict, which means it must cease support for the Assad regime.”

The source added that president Hollande was careful in his statement to emphasize that Iran would only be invited to attend if this would prove beneficial to the overall process, but that subsequent media reports had ignored these reservations

(Reuters) – The commander of Syria’s main rebel force is coming under increasing pressure to impose unity on his fighters as the United States and other powers move towards arming the opposition battling to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.

General Salim Idriss, a defector chosen six months ago as consensus figure to lead the rebel Supreme Military Council, is being promoted as a cool head to bring together fractious combat units and curb the influence of radical Islamists.

Idriss’s Supreme Military Council, which runs the Free Syrian Army that looked on the verge of toppling Assad last year, is trying to recover from the loss of the town of Qusair to government troops reinforced by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia this month.

Washington’s decision to arm the council, an umbrella group organized into five geographical fronts, and reports that weapons are also coming in from the Gulf, have put the onus on the East German educated former military academic to forge a single rebel front.
…
But impressing international powers is one thing. Convincing skeptical Syrian rebels – who see Idriss as more of a spokesman and arms procurer than genuine leader – is a tougher challenge, and increasingly urgent as Assad’s forces win back rebel ground.

“Idriss has done well as an interlocutor with the West and the Gulf, but the military situation is degenerating … It is not too late to save it but he does not have much time,” said a senior opposition figure who did not want to be named.

“The Islamists do not like Idriss but they do not hate him either,” the source said.

The West wants a united rebel force before committing weapons. They don’t want to see the weapons redirected on them in other places ( Hamas, Afghanistan, Iraq…)
I think they are fools. The rebels will never unite, and if they do they will be destroyed by Al Nusra. They have brought up a monster in their womb that will eat them if they try to extract it.

Saudi Arabia is panicking at the possibility that Bashar al Assad may win. They prefer to see Syria destroyed by Al Qaeeda than the humiliation of a defeat.
They are sending weapons to just anyone who could prevent Bashar from winning but they know it is not enough.
They want the US to act militarily now under a ‘humanitarian pretext’. I doubt the USA will intervene as they do not want the Islamists to win either.
The fiasco of the GCC’s adventure in Syria is looming.

As well as getting arms over the southern border, the Damascus rebels need opposition forces in neighboring Deraa province to alleviate the blockade from outside.

“We are trapped inside al-Ghouta and there is absolutely no route into the area if the mujahideen (holy warriors) in the south do not come to open the front,” said activist Amran.

But infighting and rivalries have long plagued the rebels – it is what made Western powers hesitant to back their fractious forces and has also sabotaged many rebel efforts to unite against Assad offensives across the country.

In the Ghouta region, mistrust and greed has prevented fighters blocking advances as they await help, some rebels say.

“The regime is advancing on the Marj area and has taken several towns in a critical part of the rebel base here. Unfortunately the blame for this lies on us as much as them,” said a fighter speaking by Skype, who asked not to be named.

“Some of the biggest brigades here are focusing on cementing their control on specific towns, to loot factories and seize all the supplies. They’ve ignored the wider cause,” he said.

A British proposal to put Hezbollah on the EU’s terrorism blacklist was resisted on Wednesday by some of the bloc’s 27 members who fear such action would fuel instability in the Middle East, diplomats said.

Britain has argued that the militant Shi’ite Muslim movement should face European sanctions because of evidence it was behind a bus bombing in Bulgaria that killed five Israelis and their driver in July. Hezbollah, which the United States lists as a terrorist organisation, denies any involvement in the attack. ( and Bulgaria backtracked on its accustation
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Diplomats say a majority of EU member states, including France and Germany, back the British proposal. But unanimity is needed and Austria, the Czech Republic and Italy have voiced reservations over what would be a major policy shift for the EU.

Hezbollah may pull out of Syria when all Al Nusra fighters and foreign Islamists would not be in Syria anymore and will present no more threats to Syria and Lebanon of a forced “Islamic caliphate”.

If FSA has not decided or is not strong enough to get rid of Al Nusra and its Islamist terrorists presently in Syria, then the Syrian Army helped by Hezbollah will attempt to render the world that service.

Military sources say their impending presence in the war zone and the possibility of Western-supplied weapons in Syrian rebel hands causing Russian casualties are enough to contribute three more perilous dimensions to the Syrian conflict:
1. The harming of Russian soldiers would give Moscow an excuse to pile on more military reinforcements in Syria;
2. Russian air power is on its way to Syrian airspace before any decision is taken in the West about imposing a US-led no-fly zone over Syria;
3. The presence of Russian military personnel in Syria would pour more fuel on the already highly incendiary diplomatic and military tensions between Washington and Moscow over this conflict.
Some commentators had disregarded everything I tried that brought to you!!! Net means Net!!!Any comment?http://www.debka.com/article/23058/Russian-marine-and-air-power-head-for-Syria-versus-Western-intervention-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%9Cto-defend-Russian-citizens-%E2%80%9D-says-Moscow

A person with a Ph.D. like myself should be a harsh critic of racists, bigots, and murderous dictators. How could a person who has any brain support a 4-decade murderous and hereditary dictatorship? How could one have any respectful dialogue with somebody like you, Mr. Darryl, who thinks that over 95% of Syrians who are Muslims are foreign invaders or “colonizers?!” Didn’t you attribute Syria’s ongoing chaos (which I attribute to the dictatorship) to what you described in a bigoted and Islamophobic fashion as “1400 years of colonization?” Are you still longing for the Greek and Byzantine Empires?

This is an excellent analysis. I believe that Obama is opting for Option # 2: “The two state solution: Divide the country into two states, which corresponds to the present reality.” But I think this will be a “Temporary 2 state solution” to test the ability of the SFA and the opposition to bring law and order in the “Aleppo State”, push back Jabhat-al-Nusra et. al. and to negotiate a ceasefire with the Assad controlled Damascus-Homs-Coast. This will also prevent major ethnic cleansing of the minorities. Once fighting dies off across the de facto borders, maybe cooler heads will prevail both among the Alawis as well as the Sunnis and negotiations would lead to reunification to satisfy the Alawis’ fears from retributions as well as the wishes of all Syrians for a free and pluralistic society. Wishful thinking? That’s the only hope for reducing the current bloodshed and avoiding an all out Sunni-Shiaa war in the region.

then woke up completely healthy after his daughter slept next to him and prayed for him.

This is a very emotionally touching story. I googled it and got 12800 hits. I read the first 30 or so entries. All are, not surprisingly, on Islamist web sites. Not a single one gave the source of the story even when they assert that it is a true story.

I ask myself the obvious question:

. Would a Saudi hospital put some one on life support system for 15 years unless he is a billionaire Saudi prince?

. Wouldn’t you expect the doctors in that hospital to announce that event and discuss it in hundreds of medical conferences?

. Wouldn’t the sensation hungry mass media congregate on that hospital like mosquitos around the fire?

Finally a personal question: If Allah hears the prayers of this daughter. Why doesn’t he hear the many similar prayers of the billions of daughters, sisters, and mothers in this world?

It seems to me that this is the text of an Arabic composition of a gifted teen pupil, than a real story.

AMMAN (Reuters) – Islamist rebels have cut access to a Kurdish area in northern Syria and clashed with Kurdish nationalist PKK fighters whom they accuse of backing President Bashar al-Assad, sources on both sides said on Thursday.

The confrontation threatens to open a new front in Syria’s 27-month-old civil war, in which Kurds, who form about 10 percent of the population, have so far played a limited role.

Fighting erupted overnight on the edge of Ifrin, a rugged, olive-growing area on the Turkish border, the sources said. Four people were killed, bringing to at least 30 the death toll from battles and assassinations in the last few days. Dozens more have been taken in tit-for-tat kidnappings, the sources said.

Tensions between Arabs and Kurds, whose relationship is riven by land disputes, especially in eastern Syria, have risen since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011.

Thousands of Kurds joined peaceful pro-democracy protests early on in the revolt but the community has mostly stayed out of the armed and largely Islamist insurgency that followed.

Although Kurdish politicians hold senior posts in the mostly Arab Sunni Muslim opposition, attempts to bring the main Kurdish parties into the umbrella Syrian National Coalition have failed, amid rows over how to define Kurdish rights in a future Syria.
…

Accusing PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) fighters of supplying the two villages, Islamist rebels cut main roads from Ifrin to the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo this month, causing prices of basic goods in Ifrin to soar, residents said.

Kurdish farmers are also struggling to market their crops, the sources said, with rebels extorting high fees at roadblocks.

“Ifrin has been sympathetic to the revolution but the rebels are not serving their cause by what they are doing,” said Abboud Hakim, a retired government official in Ifrin.

“They accuse the PKK of delivering supplies to Nubbul and Zahra when they themselves let trucks go there if they pay them at the roadblocks,” he said.

Among other things, this exposes yet again the highly suspect nature of the one-man Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), based in a two-room apartment in London and considered by the Western media, for inexplicable reasons, the only credible and worthy of mention source on Syria.

The principal of SOHR, who calls himself Rami Abdul Rahman, appears to be some sort of weirdo who is into fantasies and fakeries.

In this case he seems to have faked “evidence” of rebel atrocities against Shia.

I wish authentic agencies in the west supporting Syrian human rights issues would get together to highlight the truth about Rahman in the media.

Syria: President Assad’s grip on Damascus suggests David Cameron’s ‘coup’ is little more than fantasy

The Prime Minister has appealed to regime forces to rise up against their President. But this is not Libya

The government of President Bashar al-Assad is tightening its control of Damascus, encircling and bombarding the remaining rebel strongholds in or near the city. There was only the sound of a few distant explosions today that appear to come from the south where the Syrian army is seeking to drive rebels from around the golden-domed Shia shrine of Sayida Zeinab 10 miles from the centre of Damascus.

The capital is quieter than it was six months when the sound of artillery constantly reverberated from the mountains nearby. There are fewer mortar rounds being fired into the city centre from rebel-held districts. The airport road, which had been closed by snipers, is open; so too is the long road north to Homs, Syria’s third largest city, and from there to the Mediterranean coast.

When I wrote the ugly truth, it’s not my standpoint. I was referring to those who would still consider that their governments would never ally with the “devil”, for them its an ugly truth.

Sandro

When it comes to the position of our government its a shaky ride I agree for long they have had contacts with the regime, I would think until late 2011, very intact contacts. Not only this Merkel led coalition had good relations, the Schroeder administration were the first I believe who made good grounds for Germany in Syria after Hafez died. I think the security organizations knew each other well enough, and had an “prosperous” exchange not only of information. I blame the lament stand of Merkel basically on her adopted style of governance. She always weights a decisison almost to the latest point, and suddenly sometimes revises what was a law for her yesterday. I would say, she and Germany could soon as well join an international effort to end the war, by peaceful or non peaceful means. Her relations to Hollande, Cameron nor Obama is not much better than to a near by neighbor, she always keeps her distance.

The regime has by and large proved that the loyalist core is not seriously threatened at the moment. However, for their resurgence to seriously undermine the rebellion, the loyalists would need a victory in Aleppo. Seizing Aleppo would simultaneously give the loyalists effective control of the vast majority of Syria’s population centers, defeat perhaps the largest concentration of rebel forces and inflict a terrible blow to the rebels’ morale.

About the Morsi “legions” no one should be afraid: there is zero chance an Egyptian allowed to travel secretly through Turkey or Jordan in order to reach a Syrian border will not escape and settle in one of these two countries in order to make a better living. As the decision of severing the diplomatic ties was taken just after KSA announced that it was the so-called “rebels” who were in charge this year for the hajj visa lottery, one has to understand it as a “simplification” of such an essential administrative process (especially in Morsi’s challenged comprehension, since he didn’t realize this was actually putting the Syrian refugees currently in Egypt in a jail-like situation).

MOSSAD RECRUITING ALGERIAN YOUTHS TO FIGHT SYRIANS
ALGIERS, Algeria, June 20 (NNN-FNA) – Israel’s spy agency, Mossad, is recruiting Algerian young men to send them to Syria to help the other foreign-backed terrorists in the fight against the Syrian people and government, an Algerian newspaper revealed on Wednesday.

Informed sources, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Algerian daily, al-Fajr, that the activities of Salafi groups in the country are under the supervision of Mossad, and these groups coax the Algerian young men into getting involved in what they call as “Jihad in Syria” and includes killing civilians and increasing insecurity in the country.

The sources said that the Salafi groups in Algeria are in direct contact with their religious fellows in Tunisia, and also receive different financial and military aid from Qatar.

In relevant remarks earlier this week, a senior Austrian officer disclosed the logistic, military and medical assistance of Israel, to the terrorist groups fighting in Syria.

“Israel crosses the border with Syria very often, and interferes in Syria’s border villages at an unimaginable rate, and these interferences include assistance and aid (to the rebel and terrorist groups) in various logistic, military and medical grounds,” the Austrian officer, who asked to remain anonymous, said in an interview with the Palestinian weekly, al-Manar.

He also said that Israel and the terrorist groups have joint operation rooms in the bordering areas between Syria and the occupied Palestinian territories, to coordinate their activities and facilitate assistance to the rebel groups.

The officer, who had been deployed in the Golan Heights, within the framework of multi-national forces, in recent months said that Israel also hosts and treats wounded members of the rebel groups in field hospitals and clinical centres near the bordering areas, specially Zaif hospital in Safad city.

In relevant development, security sources in the Qatari government disclosed that Israel has sent its Coordinator on Syrian Affairs, Afif Shavit, to a meeting with Qatari officials in London late in May, to discuss supply of more arms to the rebel groups fighting the Syrian government.

“The 4-hour meeting was held in a house in Braum House in London, belonging to Khalid a-Abeed, a Qatari citizen residing in Britain, on May 20,” the source, who asked to remain anonymous, due to the sensitivity of his information, and for fear of his life, told FNA.

“During the meeting, it was decided that Israel prepare and supply the weapons needed by the terrorists in Syria, and enter negotiations with European arms manufacturing companies on arms purchases and money transfer methods, and the Qatari side cover the funds and needed budget for purchases,” added the source.

The meeting was held at a time when the EU decided to lift the arms embargo on foreign-backed militants in Syria. British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, said on May 28, that European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, have reached an agreement to lift the arms embargo on militants in Syria, while maintaining other sanctions on the country. The EU also decided to allow European banks to open branches and accounts in Syria, for use by the opposition.

It also coincided with US Republican Senator, John McCain’s surprise visit to Syria in late May, during which he urged the administration of President Barack Obama, to send heavy arms and logistic aid to the Syrian rebels.

On the other side, the Qatari government plays the role of a facilitator and the financial supporter of the rebel and terrorist groups in Syria. The British newspaper, Financial Times, published an investigation in May which revealed that Qatar spent billions of dollars in the past two years, to fund Syrian terrorist and rebel groups.

“Qatar has spent about three billion dollars in the past two years, to support the opposition in Syria, which far exceeds that provided by any other government. However, Saudi Arabia competes now in leading the bodies providing Syrian opposition with weapons,” the paper said.

“The cost of the Qatari intervention in Syria only represents a very small part of international investment of Qatar,” it added.

FT claimed that Qatari support for the Syrian opposition, overwhelms the western support.

The UK daily also noted that during scores of interviews it made with militant opposition leaders at home and abroad, along with senior western and regional officials, everyone stressed the growing role of Qatar in the Syrian crisis, and this has become a controversial issue.

The paper pointed out that “the small state with huge appetite” is the largest donor of aid to the Syrian opposition, offering generous grants for dissidents, amounting fifty thousand dollars per year for the dissident and his family, according to some estimates. ……http://www.namnewsnetwork.org/v3/read.php?id=MjM1MDQy

According to the American scenario just after the fall of Syria through the European LNG market and offer excessive amounts of oil in Saudi Arabia planned to bring down the price of hydrocarbons (knocking, in particular, the price of oil up to 50-52 dollars per barrel). The high degree of danger of the threat and the inadmissibility of the implementation of such a scenario, today defines the logic decision-making leadership of Russia in the supply of modern means of protecting Syria.

Greetings from Putinhttp://eng.kremlin.ru/news/5619
….Meeting with First Vice Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China Zhang Gaoli
This is particularly true, of course, energy. Prepared a large-scale, without any exaggeration, too unprecedented contract with the company “Rosneft”: exports to China are expected at levels which are calculated from more than a hundred million tons of oil. All this is in dollars – more than $ 60 billion.

Great expectations we associate with the cooperation of Chinese friends with a company “Gazprom”, as “NOVATEK” (already in the gas sector)….

….After taking office, Prime Minister of China Xi Jinping chose Russia for his first international visit. During this visit, he with you, Mr. President, led the successful conversation…

Are you enforcing your rules? Can you see how Bashar’s 247. CITIZEN is posting a very very very very long article? His long post is generally beyond “fair use,” unless he or you have a permission from the original publisher.

Also, please see 252. Citizen, 222Citizen, 244Citizen, and 249Citizen with his/her embedded video. These are 5 (that’s 5) videos in just ONE day! Is CITIZEN exempt from following the rules against posting very very very very long articles, and from embedding too many videos? Do I need a “civil rights” movement here on SC in order to have equal rights for everybody, not just pro-murderous dictator commentators and apologists?

It’s clear that certain posters here have a daily (in some cases it appears to be hourly) quota of words and posts they need to fulfil. And they do it in shifts, rotating with others, while also playing with the voting system.

The fact their junk mailing approach has drastically shrunk the interest and participation in this forum doesn’t seem to concern them. Audience effectiveness isn’t part of their schooling or job description.

They are here to do a job, and SyriaComment has a default policy which enables them.

In the whole tirade against the opposition where exactly is your criticism of the regime raping and torturing children in their jails? What about the criticism against the regimes numerous atrocities?

You want me to believe you are against the bloodshed then how about starting to criticize the bloodshed your regime has caused and continues to cause and instead of calling actions such as rape and destruction heroic call it for the simple barbarianism and callous disregard for human beings that it is?

I see the atrocities that has been committed in the name of the opposition and in the name of the revolution, what is stopping you from seeing the over abundant evidence of your regimes crimes?

Firstly, I do not know where you get this idea that I am a pro-government person. I am all for freedom, democracy and dignity of the individual which Islam is totally against.

Secondly I have never called for cleansing or thought Syrian Muslims are foreigners. What I have said and standby, is that Arabs using Islam colonized Syria and have been doing so for over 1400 years now.

Thirdly, all Syrians should be proud of the Byzantine culture that existed in Syria before Islamic invasion. The Islamic armies (which had lots of Syrian Christian mercenaries) carried this culture with it to Spain and many places; they did not carry backward Bedouin culture. It was these Byzantine Christians who translated all the Greek works to the new infused Arabic language that had its foundations in the Syriac and Aramaic languages.

You are forgiven to be ignorant of this fact as I am sure you are ignorant of the fact that Quraan is derived and fashioned after the prayer book in the Syriac church which was called Quraana.

Now to test your critical thinking Dawoud, kindly let go of the mouse and locate your bollocks for me.

A. Are they between your legs or are they next to your kidneys as the all knowing Allah said in his book Surat al-Tariq (86) verse 7?

B. Is the Female egg fertilized by urine emerging from the back as verse 6 says or sperm emerging from the bollocks between your legs?

Every shipment enters a tangle of complex rebel politics, with dozens of brigades and battalions operating on the ground, riven by jealousies, rivalries and competition, with radical Islamist fighters dominant. Moderate brigades complain Islamists are being favored.
….
The new shipment earlier this month— said to be only the second sent by Gulf countries since November, and the first ever known to include some anti-aircraft missiles—caused a stir among rebels who say it went to one of the extreme Islamist groups, Ahrar al-Sham. The group is the strongest member of the Syrian Islamist Front, made up of 11 Islamist factions, which appears to be increasingly posing as a parallel to the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, a loose umbrella group of rebel fighters.

“The distribution
was not fair,” said Zeineddine al-Shami, a spokesman for the First Brigade of the Free Syrian Army in the Damascus area. “It was random, based on the people they know.”
…
Ahrar al-Sham is one of the most well-established rebel groups to emerge in the Syrian conflict, with fighting units in nearly all the provinces. It has coordinated to some degree with the new unified Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, created in December to incorporate the disparate rebel brigades, but it still maintains an independent command.

Although it calls itself a moderate Islamist group, activists and residents in areas the group controls describe them as hardcore. Alongside Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaida-linked force that includes many foreign jihadis, Ahrar al-Sham controls Raqaa, the only city the rebels managed to fully seize in Syria. One activist reported seeing Ahrar al-Sham fighters threatening to cut off an old man’s hands for smoking, a vice for observant Muslims.

Ahrar al-Sham denied it received the weapons.

Its leader Abdullah al-Hamawi wrote on his Twitter account Wednesday that reports his group has received new anti-tank missiles “can only be taken in the context of attempts to incite factions against each other.”

Whether the denial is true or not, it reflects the deep sensitivity among the factions over who gets weapons.

“They deny it for a simple reason, because of the high competition, even conflict, between groups,” Mustafa Alani, a Dubai-based expert on Gulf countries’ policies including aid to Syrian rebels, said. “And they don’t want to appear as having been adopted by outside parties.”

Many Syrian business men were investing and setting up factories in Egypt that would have benefited squeezed egyptian economy.
But closing the embassy, Morsy is telling them to go somewhere else.
Egypt is ruled by bad amateurs…

The meeting between Syrian rebels and Western officials in Turkey last weekend ended without any concrete commitments, according to an opposition source.

Western officials, including U.S. representatives, met the commander of the Syrian armed opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA), Salim Idris, last weekend to discuss further support, including weapons.

Louay al-Mokdad, the political and media coordinator of the FSA, told the Hürriyet Daily News that there was no progress made during the meeting.
Rebels were asking Western countries for weapons, a no-fly zone, and to push Russia to remove Iranian and Hezbollah fighters inside Syria. Western countries have so far refused to send arms to the rebels directly but the Obama administration announced last
week that it would supply lethal aid to rebels.

In fact, it is the west’s failure militarily to support the Syrian National Coalition and its principal military counterpart, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), that is strengthening the hand of al-Qaida in Syria. The SNC is formally committed to the establishment of a “democratic and pluralistic civil state” and is recognised by Britain, the US, the EU and the Arab League as legitimately representing the Syrian people. Yet demoralised by their shortage of arms, soldiers of the FSA have been defecting to the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra militia, which is, according to some sources, the best-equipped rebel force in Syria. The double-headed monster traditionally oppressing the Arab world – brutal dictatorships in power and opposition channelled into Islamist extremism and terrorism; the very combination that spawned al-Qaida and the 9/11 attacks in the first place – looks set to be resuscitated in Syria, as Johnson and other conservatives do their best to undermine western support for the only viable alternative.

The crowning irony is that the fixation of Johnson et al on Sunni Islamic extremism is blinding them to the far-greater Islamist menace facing Syria: the Shia Islamist extremism promoted by Iran and embodied in its proxy, Hezbollah. The latter is an organisation whose military wing the UK and others designate as terrorist, and whose founding manifesto calls for “holy war” and “Islamic government”. It was probably the perpetrator of a bomb attack in Bulgaria last year that killed five Israelis and one Bulgarian, though it denies any involvement. Hezbollah and Iran are promoting sectarian hatred against Sunnis in Syria while continuing to stoke their long-running confrontation with Israel. The consequences for regional peace and stability of a victory for Iran and Hezbollah are not something that Johnson and Miliband are apparently giving much thought.

And from a bureaucratic perspective, a lack of an effective structure inside the administration responsible for Syria has contributed to the impression of disarray from inside the government.”I really am saddened by the fact that 2 ½ years into this, we don’t have an interagency task force that is effective, efficient and organized,” said one administration official.

The quandary in which the White House finds itself played out in the Situation Room last Wednesday. As Bloomberg columnist Jeffrey Goldberg reported, the Secretary of State John Kerry and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Marty Dempsey got into what was described as a heated exchange about the need to use airstrikes to send a real message to Syria’s Assad regime. Kerry wanted them, Dempsey didn’t. Aides familiar with the meeting say the meeting was more collegial than the Bloomberg portrayal — less of a “cage match,” and more of a discussion — but the substance of the reporting was accurate.
…
Even many Syrian interventionists understand the Pentagon’s reluctance. The brass has been told, essentially, to worry about Iran in the region and Syria is essentially a sideshow that must end on its own.

For Kerry’s part, a no-fly zone — and the air strikes it would likely take to establish it — must remain on the table. Kerry is likely pushing for targeting a small handful of targets inside Syria that would in no way end the conflict but make send a signal and thus make a difference. Kerry, who like Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel are both Vietnam veterans, is thought to be well aware of the risks of “owning” the Syrian conflict.

The Turkish uprising is rooted in the inconsistencies of the Erdogan government. The latter—after having billed itself as “Muslim Democrat” (based on the “Christian Democratic” model)— suddenly revealed its true nature with the advent of the Arab Spring “color revolutions.”

In terms of domestic and foreign policy, there is a before and after the volte face. The previous stage involved the infiltration of institutions. The aftermath has been characterized by sectarianism. Before, Ahmed Davutoğlu’s theory of “zero problems” with Turkey’s neighbors took center stage. The former Ottoman Empire seemed to be coming out of its slumber and returning to reality. After that, the opposite happened: Turkey fell out with each of her neighbors and went to war against Syria.

….
Assad’s regime has probably NOT used chemical weapons. Yet the American intelligence services, or at least some of them, are telling him that this has indeed happened. Why would they do that? They may have just been sucked in by the steady flow of rebel allegations that Assad’s troops are using poison gas. Even good analysts can succumb to the line of thinking that holds that if there’s enough smoke, then there must be fire. You think that can’t happen? Remember Iraq?

It can happen especially easily when the analysts or their superiors want it to be true. The rebels in Syria have been losing all their battles recently, undermining the widespread conviction in American government and media circles that the fall of the Assad regime is just a matter of time. So the desire grows in those circles to reverse that trend by helping the rebels directly.

Even if Obama disbelieves the intelligence he is being fed, he cannot reject it openly, and he is shackled politically by his ill-advised “red line” commitment of ten months ago. All he can do now is talk a tough line, while dragging his feet as much as possible on actual action.

‘Rebel’ signature drive claims to have collected 15 million citizens’ endorsements in support of its calls for President Morsi’s ouster and snap presidential elections

…
At Thursday’s conference, the campaign said it would request the United Nations – as an “impartial” party – to count the signatures it had collected to ensure their authenticity.

Morsi and the Brotherhood, meanwhile, say there is no legal or constitutional basis for holding early presidential elections. The ‘Rebel’ campaign, however, insists on its legitimacy and intends to present its signatures to Egypt’s High Constitutional Court on 30 June.

Organisers say the 15 million votes – two million more than the votes garnered by Morsi in the final round of last year’s presidential elections – represent a majority of Egyptians who want Morsi out of office.

A U.S. army veteran accused of joining up with an al-Qaeda affiliate to fight the Syrian government has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Virginia.

Thirty-year-old Eric Harroun of Phoenix was indicted Thursday on charges of conspiracy to use a destructive device overseas and conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

One charge carries a 15-year punishment, the other a maximum life sentence.

He was first charged in April with using a rocket propelled grenade as a soldier in the Nusra Front. The State Department says that’s an alias for al-Qaida in Iraq.

Further clashes between supporters and opponents of Muslim Brotherhood in a number of Egyptian cities overnight; 25 injured in Kafr El-Sheikh

Ahram Online, Thursday 20 Jun 2013
…
Unrest has taken place in several cities over President Mohamed Morsi’s appointment on Sunday of seven Brotherhood members as regional governors. The move sparked anger over the Islamist group’s perceived attempts to tighten its grip on the country’s bureaucracy.

Brotherhood members are now governors of 11 of Egypt’s 27 governorates.
…
President Morsi on Sunday named a member of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya as governor of Luxor. The group killed scores of Western tourists in the city in 1997. The group has since renounced terrorism and the governor claims never to have taken part in violence.

Steve Sailer has an article on the tie-in between Israeli high tech firms and the NSA spying on American citizens (“Does Israel Have a Backdoor to US Intelligence?“). It’s always seemed very suspicious that Amdocs, an Israeli firm, was responsible for billing for US phone companies, and that two Israeli firms, Narus and Verint, are involved in wiretapping AT&T and Verizon for the NSA. It’s also not surprising that, as noted by James Bamford in his April 2012 article for Wired, someone with close connections to Israel secretly gave software designed by NSA to Israel: “the advanced analytical and data mining software the NSA had developed for both its worldwide and international eavesdropping operations was secretly passed to Israel by a mid-level employee, apparently with close connections to the country.” Bamford’s source describes him as “a very strong supporter of Israel.”

This is likely yet another example of a long list of American Jews who are credibly believed to have spied for Israel, including pretty much the entire roster of prominent neocons (Perle, Wolfowitz, Stephen Bryen, Douglas Feith, and Michael Ledeen; see here, p. 47ff)—none of whom, with the exception of Jonathan Pollard, have been convicted, and many of whom, like the person mentioned here, have never been indicted. And given this long list, it is certainly reasonable to think that Israel is using its connections with the NSA to mine US data for its own purposes. In fact, it would be silly to think otherwise.

Israel used Palestinian minors as human shields, detain and torture – UN
Thousands of Palestinian children were systematically injured, tortured and used as human shields by Israel, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child reported. Israel’s foreign minister denied the report’s accusations, calling it “recycled old stuff.”

During the 10-year period examined by UN human rights experts, up to 7,000 children aged 9 to 17 were arrested, interrogated and kept captive, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) said in its new report. At least 14 cases of abuse were reported to have taken place in the past three years.

As conflict in the Gaza Strip and West Bank continues, children on both sides continue to be killed and wounded; however, the majority of victims are Palestinian.

“Hundreds of Palestinian children have been killed and thousands injured over the reporting period as a result of the state party military operations, especially in Gaza where the state party proceeded to [conduct] air and naval strikes on densely populated areas with a significant presence of children, thus disregarding the principles of proportionality and distinction,” Reuters reported, citing the CRC’s report.http://rt.com/news/israel-torture-palestinian-children-004/

The UAE will be there for Egypt as soon as a non-Muslim Brotherhood group is in office because Egypt deserves better.
On El Erian, the UAE and diplomatic suicides
What El Erian and other Muslim Brotherhood members do not seem to realise is that their attitudes are endangering Egypt’s very fragile democratic transition
Last Monday, Dr Essam El Erian, the seasoned Muslim Brotherhood member and Deputy Chairman of its Freedom and Justice Party, said that “Egypt’s patience with the UAE will not last much longer and that the UAE’s attitude is disgraceful.” His comments were made in relation to the 11 Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members that have been arrested on charges of spying in the UAE for the movement and setting up businesses that fund it. He went to say that “a nuclear Iran is coming and that Emiratis will become slaves to the Persians.” While the style and manner he chose to employ are not worthy of a senior member of a ruling party, it is not surprising. And while the terms and phrases he chose to use are unbecoming of a public official, it is not offensive but rather comical and sad.
The revolution was meant to conclude the Muslim Brotherhood’s story of perseverance, ambition and pragmatism. Instead they have managed to antagonise everyone, literally. Domestically, it is at war with everyone to the right and left of it. Regionally, it has sent mixed signals to Gulf states, the Syrian people and most recently Ethiopia.http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/on-el-erian-the-uae-and-diplomatic-suicides-1.1199919

Sorry Zoo I can’t see past excusing the rape of Children as spies as something that one can move on from…

But thanks for reinforcing the obvious that your entire surmise is based on a one sided charade that can excuse the rape of children and other inhumanly things while holding the other side to a standard you are not willing to live up to.

You are as hollow as your president who is nothing but a lion made out of paper mâché.

My name is Liad and i am an Israeli (consider myself more as a citizen of this planet), I live in the Golan Heights, on the
mountains, not far from the border with Syria (7 KM away). I live in a very small village called Odem (which is “ruby”, the red stone, named for the color of the ground on the mountain we are living on.

For the last few months we can hear and see the war in Syria. we can see the lights of the explosions, we can hear them so close that our houses shaking with the ground. Sometimes for few hours and sometimes for weeks!!! At the moment i can hear it going for some hours.

We see it and there is nothing we can do. Our hearts with the Syrian people who live in fear because of a war by the name of this god or that god.
Hundreds of people getting killed every day for no reason and we feel every one of them. We cry for you and hope for you that the war will end and you will get back to your life or sadly to what ever left of it. I will love to come and help you rebuild your houses, i will be glad to share with you as a brother.

You deserve to be free and live your life only the way you want, i will fight for it.

Where i live is so far away from any other place in Israel, its funny but the closest places are behind the border and i cant get there.
I wish that one day soon i will be able to cross the border and visit my Syrian friends, i dream about the day i will be able to host them
at my place and share my life with them.

We are brothers and sisters and no politician or any leader can change it.

Its up to us and only us to connect and share our love and enjoy this planet as free human beings.

My heart is with all of you that at war. i cry with you, i can feel the pain.

I pray for peace and will never do anything to harm any of you or any one.

My house is open for anyone from any religion. Absolutely for anyone in the world.
I am here to learn and to share my knowledge.

It’s just some unrest struggling to gain adherents and expand wider from the opposition base.

PM Erdogan just has to be careful not to make it worse with any unjustifiable/disproportionate hardline response (crackdown). He must also seriously study the issues of concern to the people on the streets and respond appropriately.

The rise of extremism in the form of the Wahhabi movement during the twentieth century could not have taken place without the huge investments made by the Al-Saud family in conjunction with the American in the name of democracy, freedom and human rights to destroy Arab nationalism, socialism, secularism, and of course Islam.http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2013/06/saudi-wahhabism-and-conspiracies-2/

Dr. Landis and others who feel that the US and other western nations owe the Syrians and other Middle Eastern countries [excluding Israel] “a vision” aught to wke up and smell the roses as the saying goes..

“The west’s dominance of the Middle East is ending”

…direct colonialism in the Middle East ended decades ago. The era of informal empire is now also coming to a close. gideon.rachman@ft.com By Gideon Rachman

C-tizen
You said KSA to destroy Arab nationalism, socialism, secularism, and of course Islam.

Mentioning that KSA destroys Islam ?,I and many others will strongly dis agree with such statement, Islam is Quraan, no one can destroy it except those who interpreted wrong, as Sheikhs and certainly Persian religious faqihs,they do it temporary, Islam will win over those who you support, and persian Shiaa will be destroyed

Darryl
Your hate to Islam is blinding you to see the truth in all your comments, can you be a good christian and ignore the bible? have you read the bible with open mind?,may I remind you of John 15-16, when Jesus said he has to go for HIM(a person) to come and he will speak out of holly spirit, and he will be explaining everything about religion,,he will be the instructor, why do you ignore such thing? this is clear statement,please don’t change it and interpret it in a way different from it clearly means.

Chemical weapons: “Evidence could have been tampered with by the opposition”

U.N.: Syrian chemical weapons laboratory tests unverifiable

U.N. policy is that its own inspectors must collect soil and other samples to prove the use of chemical weapons themselves. Smuggled evidence could have been tampered with by the opposition, the Post reported.

“If you are the opposition and you hear” [about Obama’s red line] you have an interest in giving the impression that some chemical weapons have been used,” said Rolf Ekeus, a Swedish scientist.

Dr Majed friend Alasseer(Alqseer liberator) cursing Jesus and Christians .Why is
Majed not going back to (liberated)Syria,Why is he staying between Alkuffar in
Colorado(who are worshipping cows,rats and Jesus)?
Matt should travel to Lebanon to meet with Alaseer so we can learn from the shiek
Wisdom(like he did when he travelled to Moraco to meet with the other jerk,Alyacoubi ,his nephew):

How can Obama profess genuine nuclear arms reduction and “world peace with justice” when this president is currently planning along with other NATO allies, Britain and France, to supply more weapons to drown Syria in a bloodbath that his country has created over the past two years? Obama is an accused war criminal, not a messenger of peace.http://youtu.be/AhUUScVZ5Hc?t=18s

PanARMENIAN.Net – Syrian troops bombarded the Damascus neighborhood of Qabun on Friday, June 21, as they pressed a bid to drive rebels out of the district, a watchdog said, according to AFP.

“Regime troops renewed shelling this morning of the Qabun neighborhood and fierce clashes were underway between soldiers and rebels on the outskirts of the area,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

“Regime forces are hitting the area with mortar rounds, tanks and heavy artillery,” the group added.

The fighting came on the third day of a regime attempt to clear rebel forces from the neighborhood in northeastern Damascus, one of several districts on the outskirts of the capital where opposition forces have a foothold.

The clashes killed at least one rebel fighter, and there were reports of deaths among regime troops as well, the Observatory said.

Weapons delivery to Syrian “rebels”: Despite theatrical announcements, in the UK Cameron may face opposition from the House of commons and in the USA, Obama may face opposition from the congress. In France Hollande seems to change his mind too. Are the rebels threatened to be abandoned to their fate so the opposition would be is obliged to unconditionally accept Geneva II?

Four US senators seek to bar military aid to Syria opposition

21 June 2013 /AP, REUTERS, WASHINGTON
Four senators have introduced legislation that would bar President Barack Obama from providing military aid to Syria’s opposition forces, saying the administration has provided too little information about what they see as a risky intervention.

The bill would prevent the Department of Defense and US intelligence agencies from using any funds to support military, paramilitary or covert operations in Syria, directly or indirectly.

The bill’s sponsors — Democrats Tom Udall of New Mexico and Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Republicans Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky — expressed doubts about Washington’s ability to ensure weapons will not fall into the wrong hands, and called for debate in Congress before the United States becomes more involved in Syria’s civil war.

“The president’s unilateral decision to arm the Syrian opposition is incredibly disturbing, considering what little we know about whom we are arming,” Paul said in a statement.

The fate of Syria and the broader Middle East balances on a razor’s edge. The western media is giving dire warnings of an impending sectarian war between Sunni and Shia Muslims, a war that could drown the Middle East in a flood of blood.

A compilation of data from humanitarian workers in and around Syria compiled by NATO suggests that:

“…70 percent of Syrians support the Assad regime. Another 20 percent were deemed neutral and the remaining 10 percent expressed support for the rebels.”

The pro-Assad 70 percent is mostly Sunni. This data flies in the face of the constant barrage of western media distortion about what’s happening in Syria. Previous polling compiled last year by Qatar had similar results, and was likewise ignored by the western media.

Yet there is one more underlying reason for Western military intervention in Syria that is rarely discussed publicly, even among many alternative media outlets – the goal of total domination by the private central banking system.

It is true that both debt and the control of currency is one of the most effective means of enslaving an entire population without their knowledge. Continually chasing financial freedom with no ability to pay off debt and save for the future ensures that a sizable majority of the population will not have the means, time, or energy to resist the totalitarian methods imposed upon them.

Any one who study religions knows that Christianity is founded on love(same is true for
Many other religions like Buddhism and Hindus )
Trying to picture Christians as haters to Moslems
Is a reflection of self feelings.it is not your fault
That someone decided to call us the ancestors
Of pigs and monkeys ,it is your fault that you
Apply that in your life,it is out duty to forgive you.

The Lies of Empire: Don’t Believe a Word They Say – Washington is the Godfather of International Jihadism

The contradictions of centuries have ripened, overwhelming the capacity of the “West” to contain the new forces abroad in the world. Therefore, there must be endless, unconstrained war – endless, in the sense that it is a last ditch battle to fend off the end of imperialism, and unconstrained, in that the imperialists recognize no legal or moral boundaries to their use of military force, their only remaining advantage.

To mask these simple truths, the U.S. and its corporate propaganda services invent counter-realities, scenarios of impending doomsdays filled with super-villains and more armies of darkness than J.R.R. Tolkien could ever imagine. Indeed, nothing is left to the imagination, lest the people’s minds wander into the realm of truth or stumble upon a realization of their own self-interest, which is quite different than the destinies of Wall Street or the Project for a New American Century (updated, Obama “humanitarian” version). It is a war of caricatures.

Will heavy weapons supposedly sent by “brotherly” nations create a “turning point” or just an increase of dead civilians and refugees? Why then would the USA bother to send more weapons?

(CNN) — Syrian rebels have received heavy weapons — including anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles — from “brotherly nations that support the Syrian revolution,” a rebel spokesman said Friday.

Free Syrian Army political and media coordinator Louay Almokdad told CNN during a phone call from Istanbul that Free Syrian Army leaders believe the weapons “will be a turning point” in the war against government forces “and will definitely change the rules of the war on the ground.”

Regarding removing obstacles to Palestinian commerce, perhaps we could take a look at what some of those obstacles are.

*Israel has established countless checkpoints all over the West Bank. Customers wanting to get to stores that may be a few blocks from their home may have to travel miles to get to them, because IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers arbitrarily close checkpoints whenever the mood so strikes them. Or, they might leave a checkpoint open, but prevent people from passing through by asking countless questions, demanding assorted identification, or simply telling them they have to wait until the soldiers are good and ready to speak to them. That could be today, or possibly, tomorrow. Or maybe the day after. And if a potential customer decides to try a different route, through a different checkpoint, there is no guarantee the response there will be any different. Merchants attempting to get to their own stores face the same checkpoints and challenges.

*Farmers need to plant seeds, irrigate crops, care for them and eventually harvest them. This becomes difficult when they require permits from Israel to plant and harvest on their own land. A Palestinian farmer may request a permit to plant during planting season, but be granted the permit only long after planting season has passed. If he or she is fortunate enough to be given permission to plant at the appropriate time of year, he/she must simply hope that permission to harvest will be granted when appropriate. It is not unusual for Israel to grant permission to a Palestinian farmer to harvest his/her crops long after they have spoiled in the field.

*If a farmer is sufficiently lucky to be permitted to plant and harvest on his/her own land at an appropriate time, the challenges do not end. Once the crops are harvested and loaded onto vehicles to be taken to market, the checkpoints challenge is then faced. Often, farmers are delayed so long by IDF soldiers at checkpoints that their produce spoils before they are allowed to pass through.

*Israel has built an excellent road system all over the West Bank. Unfortunately, Palestinians aren’t allowed to use those roads. If a new Israeli-only road happens to cross over a Palestinian road, Palestinians are then unable to use their own road; they are not permitted to cross over an Israeli road.

*The situation in the Gaza Strip is even worse. Israel controls all the borders, land, sea and air, and permits only a very limited number of imports or exports.

Yet despite these and other unspeakable human rights violations, the U.S. provides Israel with billions and billions of dollars every year. So if Mr. Kerry would like to remove obstacles to Palestinian commerce, perhaps he might want to consider ending U.S. aid to Israel.

With rare exception, I have not felt from the so called Arab Christian anything except extreme hate. The Arab Christian church needs to reform itself or call it self something else. Haram to associate them with Jesus name.

That was honest opinion.

And I do not hate you. I wanted to marry a Copt. He did not hate us. You hate us.

Why is it always what the other does to us, and never what we do to them?

Do you expect Christian to shower you with love and affection, when they see what happened to them in Iraq, and Syria? Churches bombed, and people tortured killed and displaced? Admittedly those crimes are committed by few extremist Muslims, but the universal silence of the majority makes all of us equally guilty.
In 1860 a few Algerian Muslims in Damascus protected Christians from a murderous mob. This deed is remembered till today with gratitude.

Today Sunni Islam is in big trouble because it has been high jacked by fanatic hateful few supported by plenty of petro dollars.
It is time for Muslims to find an answer to the famous question the Americans did not answer yet:

I am talking about religions foundation,I and he or
You or she don’t matter.does Islam teach love,is it
The duty of the Moslem to love all human beings
Even his enemies?That is the Christianity education,and that what Jesus did to his crucifers .
300 millions Moslems in the Arab world and 1400 millions in the world are not raised to learn this
Principle that you should love every human being
Like you love yourself ,That is one of the major reasons why Islamic societies are so sick.Not only
The absence of love in Islam is the issue but the
Dangerous hate and violence in some forms of Islam makes the situation even worse.You call
Such statements(Islamophobia )to run away from
Thinking,some Moslems are like Nazists think
The are the (true Moslems)and others are(false
Moslems)which they should fight?can you gues
One of them(hint:he lives in CO),so what if you are
A true Moslem ,you are just a follower of one of
Thousands of religions on the face of this earth,
And you not the (ultimat) or (superior )religion,
Nor do I ,we are all worth what we do.

On May 16th, I was passing through Istanbul and met a famous professor. He said his students were enraged. They were enraged that Erdogan had overthrown the policy of no trouble with neighbors. They were enraged that Erdogan was supporting the Zionists. They were enraged that Turkey had become viciously sectarian. They were enraged that Erdogan is arming the throat-slitters and gas-chokers of Jabhat al Nusra; and they were enraged that among the consequences of Erdogan’s Syrian policy are a massive influx of refugees and the destabilization of Turkey itself.

The professor was right. Within two weeks, big trouble burst out because Erdogan is implementing the Zionist policy of smashing apart a Middle East state, so that it is not strong enough to resist the expansion of Israel into the lands of others. Yet, little does he realize that Turkey itself is a Middle East state which is on Israel’s (and the West’s) list of states to be smashed into pieces.

You’re right to the point.
The deafening silence of the Sunnis in front of the horrors perpetrated by some Sunni fanatics is contributing to the perception that Sunnis as a whole, support them and therefore are accomplices. On this blog we have some samples that confirm exactly that perception.
I still wait for the OIC to express a single outrage or condemnation and serious course of action in reaction to the widely documented horrors perpetrated in the name of Islam.

Besides Arab Christians, do you think Arab Alawites and Shia hate you too? What about Ismaelis or Druzes? That would make a lot of people who potentially hate you.
Now I understand why you prefer to live in a non-arab, non-moslem country far away from all the hate that supposedly surrounds you.

Maybe they should be all exterminated or forced to convert, so you can feel loved and come back?

“Obama is running the biggest terrorist operation that exists, maybe in history. The drone assassination campaigns, special forces operations and so on, all of these operations, they are terror operations.”

Ziad and Zoo
In 1860 the christians started their shoshe, and infact they started the trouble in Lebanon and then spread to damascus.We never hated christians,we never hated Druze,and never hated Arab Shiaa,
The one who started the aggression and killing always lose, and that is why HA will lose, the one who hold the higher morality will win

(Reuters) – Thousands of Shi’ite Muslims from Iraq and beyond will take up arms against Sunni al Qaeda “savages” in Syria if fellow Shi’ites or their shrines come under attack again, a powerful minister in Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government said.

It would be impossible to “sit idle while the Shi’ites are being attacked”, while the United States and Western allies arm and finance the mainly Sunni rebels fighting against Syria’s government, Hadi al-Amiri told Reuters in an interview.
…
The bombing of a Shi’ite shrine housing the tombs of two imams in the Iraqi city of Samarra in 2006 was the trigger for the worst sectarian carnage between Sunnis and Shi’ites that engulfed Iraq in the middle of the past decade.

Shi’ite leaders such as Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon have issued warnings against any repeat of that attack against shrines in Syria.

Shi’ites are a minority in most of the Middle East but form the majority in both Iran and Iraq.

Was talking to a Sunni professor the other day. His comment was rather concise: the political message is very clear.

What the Syria experiencing is a proxy war consisting mainly Islamist insurgents to suit interests of the west and GCC.

Those countries hijacked a popular protest against an authoritarian secular country. Quickly poured in money and weapons to instigate internal political and religious tensions and transformed into a full-blown civil war. What’s the objective of the west? A regime change that can lead to a country “friendly” to the west, especially to Israel. And the GCC will score a big one on centuries old conflict between Sunni and Shia. That is why Sunni extremists worldwide have been flocking into Syria.

“This is about looking at the possibility of a failed state in which terrorist actors already present within Syria in this fight can launch attacks against our allies, and potentially against the United States,” Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters.

We know politicians always lie. In America, they also play scare factors. Isn’t SAA’s military gain a step closer to restore security and order to the country which will prevent a failed state? If Mr. menendez really means what he says, shouldn’t he be against sending more weapons to the rebels? Wouldn’t that make Americans safer? Someone in New Jersey should slap that liar hard.

I have not seen a confirmation from rebels media sites but if true, this piece of news is significant:
مراسل قناة الميادين قبل قليل:الجيش السوري نجح في كسر الحصار والدخول إلى مطار منغ المحاصر بعد اشتباكات عنيفة
There are also battles in more than one area in Aleppo proper and news about a large scale attack in Reef Dimashq.

The 1860 events started as a rivalry between Druze and Maronite in Mount Lebanon. The Christians there were the instigators. In Damascus the slaughter was completely unprovoked. I advise you to investigate a little before you make your superficial and erroneous comments. I recommend this excellent book:

Don’t expect from the rebels other that lies about the heavy weapons they got from ‘friendly nations’ and the “victories” they are winning.
It bears all the signs of an increase despair at their isolation and the perspective that Bashar may ‘win’ and that their fate may be sealed: Die or exile.

A crucial act is played at the meeting in Qatar on Saturday.
If it confirmed that France, the UK and the USA will withhold delivery of weapons as long that the rebels are still divided and as long as the the coalition refuses to participate to Geneva II, then get ready for a violent display of desperation among the opposition with an increase of car bombs and innocents killed.

To limit and hide the blow to the opposition, the meeting may emphasize the contribution of ‘ more humanitarian aids dollars’ to displaced Syrians…

Surprisingly, Putin. Yes, Russia is no doubt backing a tyrant in Bashar al-Assad, but Putin is correct that it is not the job of the United States or the West to overthrow the Syrian government. We have had enough US-led regime change in the Middle East. It repeatedly leads to disaster. It is time for Middle East region to sort out its own problems without Western meddling.

Majeed
324
Delusional…
Is always someone else fault not yours,Christians,Druze,Shia, have a history of attacking innocent peaceful Sunni Muslims?
Man you are worse than i could have imagined 100% brainwashed by religious propaganda
Just look @ Nigeria how Violent Muslim there against Christians attacking them many times,burning churches,killing them for no reason than religious hate
Then some of these people have balls come to USA demand for equality,religious freedom,some other protective laws against islamaphobia,Anti Islam,Building Mosques, while denying some basic rights for Christians in Moslem countries..
You Sunni are really victims of hate ,just saying…

…
Pan-Arab newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi recently reported that leaders of Hamas’s armed wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades had warned Meshaal against getting too close to Qatar, as this was having a negative impact on aid from Iran.

It was Tehran’s military support rather than Gulf financial support, they reminded him, that had enabled Hamas to face the last major Israeli assault on Gaza in November.
..
But Al-Quds al-Arabi on Monday said Hamas’s support for the rebels had been miscalculated.

Hamas “rallied to the extremist Sunni camp because it counted on the downfall of the Syrian regime within weeks or months like in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, but its steadfastness for more than two years has taken the movement by surprise”.
…
Mukhaimer Abu Saada, politics professor at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University, said the current debate within Hamas sparked by the Syrian civil war had “created two diverging trends whose resolution would depend on how the conflict pans out”.

“If the regime gets the upper hand, it will be easier for Hamas to rekindle old ties,” but a rebel victory would possibly be more problematic, he said.

Hamas is a traitor..
How do you find who is your real friend?
Its easy being friends in good times.
Its the crisis time when you friends stand by your side,help you all way ,Iran did not Forget Syria was Only Arab country that its supported during Iran-Irak war,so it snot religious thing with Iran supporting Syria.

Brother Majed is what is called a “one trick pony” in that we know what to expect from his posts. They’re very sectarian and heavily influenced by Saudi propaganda. He makes wild predictions of rebel victories and the mass death of SAA (majority Sunni SAA by the way), Hezbollah, Iranian and Iraqi soldiers.

I suspect it has been the same sort of post from him for several years. Maybe in 2007 he said Assad was close to falling. I don’t know and can’t be bothered to look. It is just a guess based on what I have observed over my short time here.

Ziad
In Damascus the Muslem protected the christians, what is interesting is that foreign powers established peace after that,and now we need foreign power to establish peace,it seems that in sectarian fight foreign powers is the only way to return to peace.

You really beat yourself in nonsensical comments. You are begging “foreighn powers” presumably FUKUS to protect your side and establish peace. These powers are under the total control of Zionists and never cared an iota for the wellbeing of Syrians/Arabs/Muslims.

Bomb attack targeting Shia mosque in Pakistan kills 15http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/06/21/310135/pakistan-shia-mosque-bombing-kills-15/
Pakistan worst kind of failed state where terrorists are being supported by government, not put in jail for their suicide attacks on fellow Muslim Shias disgraceful.
Pakistan also does everything to destroy Afghanistan,them claims its victim of Taliban,Afghan insurgents, while ISI is supporting bunch of terrorist networks inside that spread terror all over.
When will Pakistani people gonna revolt against those shaitans there?

It seems the opposition and the rebels are trying to fool themselves again. Do they really believe some anti-armor and even anti-air weapons will change the ground situation to be qualified as a “turning point”? Remember those over 6000 tons of weapons from Croatia? Did they turn out to be a “turning point”?

They definitely have not learned from their loss in Der’aa, Qusair and Damascus. The strategy and tactics of SAA already make SAA less vulnerable to those weapons since they have coordinated their weaponry and infantries more integrally. Much less depending on tanks or airplanes like used to be.

Only a direct military intervention by US would become a “turning point”.

We dare US administration to do that!

Everyday we hear SAA makes gains in Aleppo. Does that tell you something? Something very worrisome to the opposition and troubling for the rebels.

On the daily economy, inflation is accelerating. I started to pay attention to my coffee and fruit. They seem to have rised 10% only in the last 3 days. That is bad. Many Syrians are struggling and I hope they can get through.

I have to guess the regime is finally ready to ask financial help from countries who support Syria and her course. I am confident those countries are willing to help.

Business is business. The oil and gas reserves can be used as guarantee to secure more credit lines.

Apple-Mini
So the country is bankrupt and still wants to fight, only people who are willing to throw away their money will help, there is hardly any oil in Goverment control, Syria will need 10 billion dollar a year

ST. PETERSBURG, June 21 (RIA Novosti) – The United States needs to choose between its support for an international conference designed to end the civil war in Syria and unilateral steps to support the armed opposition, Russia’s foreign minister said Friday.

The United States is giving the Syrian opposition mixed signals, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a joint interview with The Associated Press and Bloomberg.

“The message the opposition is getting is, ‘Guys, don’t go to Geneva, don’t say you are going to negotiate with the regime, soon things will change in your favor,’” Lavrov said.

“It’s either the conference or the instigation of the opposition not to be flexible. I don’t think it’s possible to do both at the same time,” he added.

News that Akidi of the FSA has resigned.
(Akidi made a number of outrageous statements, he was a big mouth, talked like a sectarian thug not as a leader and may now switch to Nusra where he really belongs)

The “Friends of Syria” group of countries that support the rebels was expected to announce in Doha on Saturday that it would arm the opposition, FSA spokesman Louay Muqdad said. “We’ve received quantities of new types of weapons, including some that we asked for and that we believe will change the course of the battle on the ground.

“We have begun distributing them on the front lines, they will be in the hands of professional officers and FSA fighters,” he said.

Another sign of the “unity” of the armed rebels…
Without weapons , the FSA was fractured, with weapons it will be taken over by Al Nusra.

“Also in Aleppo, the head of the local rebel military council, Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi, announced in a video posted his resignation from the Military staff of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the most important to the armed opposition.

But he said he’ll keep his position within the command of Aleppo, the economic capital which the army says preparing to assault.”

He begins by explaining that money and influence are pouring into Tunisia from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. These patriarchal countries regard the secular traditions of Tunisia as a threat to their fundamentalist, Wahhabist strain of Islam.

“Tunisia is the only country in the Muslim world where women have the same rights as men to ask for a divorce,” he says. “We don’t practice polygamy. Tunisia is a special case. It is a counter model, which is why they want to get rid of it. Without Tunisia, they can say that certain customs are practiced only in the West. They are embarrassed that we, as Muslims, have the same equality between men and women as one finds in the land of the ‘nonbelievers.'”

The pressure on Tunisia from the Gulf states is taking its toll, says Kazdaghli. “Political instability makes us ripe for their work. The salafists are the instruments for applying these policies. We are resisting, but every day the resistance grows weaker. At the university, we no longer have police defending our buildings. They have been removed, as the suspicion grows that we are no longer ‘good Muslims.'”

“The salafists are violent and empowered in this violence by invoking the name of Allah,” he says. “This gives them their credibility. A week can go by, or two weeks, and then suddenly they swarm into action.”

It seems that Zoo,Ziad Ghufran Ilya and Revenir are in completely different worlds, their nonsense comments,are getting completely out of touch, like they are in Hammam ma2to3a mito, all their lies are for them only to believe

“Do you expect Christian to shower you with love and affection, when they see what happened to them in Iraq, and Syria”

And what happened to them in Syria for the last 15 centuries? They lived, thrived and became rich. As a matter of fact, the average Christian in Syria is richer than the average Sunni Syrian. They practiced their religion and had their churches. We did not annihilate them like what the Spaniards did to the Muslims and Jews. One of them became what a president or was it a prime minister ruling a majority Sunni country and that was in the pre-Baath era… They were treated equally fair and square.

And look how unthankful they were. Not to generalize but all of us accept that the vast majority of Christian support Batta. Don’t we? Most of the community cheered our slaughter. Christians watched us being burned and burried alive, tortured to death and massacred. Our little girls became headless, and our boys were raped and mutilated….And all these crimes are documented. You simply can not deny it. What an ungrateful community the Syrian Christian was! They could have behaved like the Druze and distanced themselves from The regime atrocities. To the opposite, they cheered, morally supported, celebrated the many “hardly a massacre”, and served as the regime best propaganda tool. They cried persecution tears, and invented stories. And of course, lots in the West accepted their fake cause and hardly lifted a finger to help the oppressed Syrians.

And while as you admit, the plot of Christians in Iraq occur at the hand of few Sunnis fanatics. The plot of Sunnis in Syria occurs at the blessing of the whole Christian community. So who hate who. Please tell me.

The Christian community that is supporting the regime in Syria lost its soul and lost its humanity. I can excuse the Alawis. I can’t excuse Syrian Christians. And honestly, I do find in my heart forgiveness to the Alawi community, even to their shabeeha. On the other hand, I must search deeply in my soul to forgive those so called Syrian Christians. Their persecution tears are fake…. And fake tears repulse me.

And by the way, if you decide to reply, please do not resort to the usual infantile argument that the regime never killed a Syrian, never raped a child, and never burned people alive..etc… I would just lose interest.

“We have heard reports that (Hezbollah) have forces in Aleppo, so it seems to me that the numbers are too high – these numbers don’t tally with the actual capacity of Hezbollah,” said Fawaz Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics.

“Still, make no mistake about it, Hezbollah is in it for the long haul … until victory,” he added.

[…]

“Hezbollah is fully engaged in the battlefield,” Gerges said. “And this is a major shift. It’s no longer them trying to protect villages along the border in Lebanon; it’s waging battle alongside the Syrian government forces … willing to sustain casualties and shoulder the consequences.”

[…]

“Iran has not officially committed troops yet but there is no doubt in my mind they will,” he said. “It has become an open ended proxy war now.”

Zoo
You say that Bashar is God, and you accuse me of being a prophet,and you consider yourself holy person, is this the persian shiaa religion is all about?
I know that persian Shiaa believe in dissimulation, which permit them to lie, may be you think of yourself as prophet from Qum.
People call this halucination

When you get to understand me right, I may decide to visit you in Australia on one of my vacation and may be we can have a Starbuck coffee next door unless you insist to make me a cup of (dare I say it) Turkish coffee yourself. That is only if you don’t have a cat.

I don’t need to try anything, your comments expose your psychological traits to the eyes of the world.
You have decided that anyone who does not agree with your blind hatred for Bashar al Assad is a traitor. Anyone… After the Shias and the Alawites, now its the turn of the ‘ungrateful filthy rich Syrian christians”. Of course the filthy rich Sunnis who benefited from the regime are conveniently excluded. Maybe because your family is among them?
Who is next in your list of ‘traitors’?

It has become even funny to observe your logic and justifications.

If you are masochist, Australia is just the place for you: Mostly Arab Shias, Alawites and Christians and love posters for Bashar everywhere. Enough to knock you down.

The head of a UN human rights investigation on Syria said it was still impossible to tell for sure who has used chemical weapons in the country’s devastating conflict.

Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the investigation committee, said he would not comment on evidence sent by the United States, Britain and France to UN experts which they say shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have used chemical arms.

“We are not able to say who has used chemical agents or chemical weapons and we are very much worried about the chain of custody of the substances,” Pinheiro told reporters after an informal meeting with UN Security Council ambassadors.

Selim Idriss is very happy with the fresh weapons the Saudis he claims has send him. He estimates that he needs 6 months to topple the regime, just before 2014.
Funny, we will see if the meeting in Qatar will be about “military co-ordination’ or the peace conference that Idriss prefers to ignore.

Syrian rebels claim new weapons may see them topple regime in six months

Free Syrian Army would be used for one objective only: ‘to fight the regime of Bashar al-Assad’
…
Syrian insurgents have received fresh supplies of weapons that could halt recent advances made by government forces, according to Selim Idriss, head of the Free Syrian Army’s military command.

He said if his army received “enough training and arms and [is] well organised, I think we need about six months to topple the regime”.
…
Saudi Arabia has, reportedly, transferred to Gen Idriss limited numbers of these weapons, said to have been bought from France and Belgium. However, he has little control over the hundreds of units, many of them fundamentalist, loosely affiliated with the Free Syrian Army.
…
Eleven foreign ministers from the Friends of Syria group are to meet in Qatar today to address how to co-ordinate military and other assistance to the rebels.

Evidence gathered in Syria, along with flight-control data and interviews with militia members, smugglers, rebels, analysts and officials in several countries, offers a profile of a complex and active multinational effort, financed largely by Qatar, to transport arms from Libya to Syria’s opposition fighters. Libya’s own former fighters, who sympathize with Syria’s rebels, have been eager collaborators.

“It is just the enthusiasm of the Libyan people helping the Syrians,” said Fawzi Bukatef, the former leader of an alliance of Libyan brigades who was recently named ambassador to Uganda, in an interview in Tripoli.

Tara
OMG … i am laughing hysterically at your posts ..
this is sad
You wont be happy until Syria is 100% Sunni Moslem,everyone is wiped off Shia,Alawite,Christian,Druzhe.
Anyone is traitor to you don’t deserve respect,right to live in Syria unless he is 100% Sunni Muslim,everywhere you suspect there is plot to kill innocent Sunnies
I see now for 1400 years you were persecuted by everybody
i am amazed how did you managed survive such brutal oppression for 1400 years by everyone around you????

Jordan in a state of panic ask a foreign country to send military troops for help. Nobody seems to object as they did when Syria called on Hezbollah for a hand….

CNN: U.S. increasing military forces in Jordan

By Tom Cohen

Due to security concerns in Jordan, which borders the Syrian civil war, a combat-equipped detachment of about 700 U.S. troops will remain in the country following training exercises that ended this week, President Barack Obama told Congress on Friday.

In a letter to comply with the War Powers Act, Obama notified Congress that the detachment staying behind at the request of the Jordanian government included “Patriot missile systems, fighter aircraft, and related support, command, control and communications personnel and system

Why are you repeating Zoo word by word? You can’t come up with original thoughts? It is becoming your signature style to parrot everyone.
—

Additionally, the last part of your post reveals problem with comprehension. Call Ann and ask about comprehension class in your township. You did not get what I said about 1400 years. Is it your English? Sorry I do not speak Serbian.

Tara
Dont attack the Messenger,
That makes you look weak,angry,pointless,rude,looks like have no answer for my questions …
That what you always resort to ,when you cant prove your points, just like these s..m rebels attacking innocents people….

Your posts offer no substance. You don’t even ask questions or make points. You only make prejudice comments of low intelligence. And the problem is that you have no insight into the quality of your comment.

What is s..m?

It is an honest question. I am not that versed. In my family we use Habibi and Habibti, you know words of that sort . That is Damascene signature style. Have not come across s..m. Please educate me.

Aside from that, l am not interested in replying to prejudice posts. I find it futile.

Ilya,
Your posts offer no substance. You don’t even ask questions or make points. You only make prejudice comments of low intelligence. And the problem is that you have no insight into the quality of your comment. You often repeat what the others are saying .

What is s..m?

It is an honest question. I am not that versed. In my family we use Habibi and Habibti, you know words of that sort . That is Damascene signature style. Have not come across s..m. Please educate me.

Aside from that, l am not interested in replying to prejudice posts. I find it futile.

Edit: HeHe. now I realize what s..m means, dear Ann. Does it feel humiliating to be banned and sneak in behind a different moniker.

Rebels and expat opposition really blew it when they took up arms and sold themselves to islamist corrupt regimes that has nothing to offer, the GCC, and foreign governments that brought nothing but destruction and chaos to the middle east, NATO.
For a revolution to succeed popular support through peaceful means have to take roots, with the goal of improving citizens lives,instead we only see extreme elements and even terrorists that control the NC and rebel forces which fought a bitter war with the regime that made Syrians poorer and less secure, now it does not matter who wins or lose, if the rebels win they will reside over a Syrian version of Afghanistan with no hope of a revival in our life time, and if they lose there will be no desire among Syrians to challenge the regime for another generation after what syrians went through in the past 27 months. If the term ” winning” meant Syria as a whole we can say with a great deal of certainty that Syria lost the battle to bring freedom and democracy, Syria in the near future will be under the mercy of an army, or armies , and foreign powers none of which has Syrians interest at heart.
You know something is seriously wrong when a king president who heads a mafia is competing with a bunch of GCC pimps over power and money when most Syrians have no chance of owning either.
كل ثوره و انتم بخير

To Tara
A question on few minds would like an answer for
How many are the fanatics that caused the ill fate of the Iraqi Christians, And how many pretend not to be but actually they are.
In this world it is quiet insulting that you keep remind all of us that somehow we were allowed to live and prosper in our own country ,the land is ours and it has been long before that fateful day. And as a reminder you will continue to refer to my Syrian community in the present and the future tense regardless of your dreams, a lot of dreams never come true.
Syria has been destroyed and its sons and daughters are being killed and their future is gone, and we do not want any part of what it is ongoing , and that what we believe in , it sadden all of us every life lost.

We have extended our hands to all only to be cut , we have opened our hearts only to be stabbed in the back, and we are always reminded that we are foreigners in our own country, how would that make you feel…

Freedom is looking for a better future forward for all and to be achieved together, it is not looking to reinvent the past in a different form for some….
It is high noon for a lot of people in our region to understand that simple concept..

366. HOPEFUL
American dictatorship and hegemony over the world is the largest and most dangerous of any dictatorship talk about! Enough spray dust in the eyes!
I can not wait for the time that will bring Middle East freedom and emancipation of hateful American hegemony! It is time for Freedom from domination! long live for Syria!

And Fxx Russia, Israel, China and Iran with them. They are the real mafia of power. We the People are being crushed under their interests. People is waking up in Europe, Turkey, Arab World, Brazil and it will not take time until things get worse and World Bank, Arms and Drugs Political Mafia gets completely exposed.

Only the empty brainwashed are still feeding their own killing and exploiting machines but time for waking up is soon.

Malki is still a Disneyland inside the House of Horrors that is nowadays´ Syria.

In Malki private schools educated rich clases are still believing Syria is a safe place. They ignore the massacres in Syria and whant to believe Assad controls their future. But the reality is that Malki will burn sooner or later and panic will spread house by house when the Assad theatre collapses and ruins into dust.

DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syria’s rebels have received new types of weapons that could “change the course of the battle,” a rebel spokesman said on Friday, as troops tried to oust opposition fighters from a Damascus district.

The announcement came a day before a meeting in Qatar of the “Friends of Syria” group of nations that back the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

“We’ve received quantities of new types of weapons, including some that we asked for and that we believe will change the course of the battle on the ground,” Free Syrian Army spokesman Louay Muqdad told AFP.

“We have begun distributing them on the front lines; they will be in the hands of professional officers and FSA fighters,” added Muqdad, a media and political coordinator for the FSA.

He said the Friends of Syria meeting was expected to officially announce on Saturday its members would arm the rebels.

Muqdad declined to specify what weapons had been received or when they had arrived, but added that a new shipment was expected in the coming days.

He said rebels had asked for “deterrent weapons,” meaning “anti-aircraft weapons, anti-tank weapons, as well as ammunition.”

Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, whose country has been one of the most open backers of the anti-Assad rebels, said that supplying them with weapons was the only way to resolve the conflict.

“Force is necessary to achieve justice. And the provision of weapons is the only way to achieve peace in Syria’s case,” Sheikh Hamad told ministers at the start of the talks.

“We cannot wait due to disagreement among Security Council members over finding a solution to the problem,” he said. He also called on Lebanon’s government to halt intervention by Lebanese factions in the neighboring conflict.

Apple-Mini told us that the goverment is bankrupt,and depends on gifts from Persia, and now we heared that Assad raised the salaries 40%,how is he going to afford that?
The prices has jumped 300% ,so 40% increase in salaries will mean a little.

I think you are the typical follower supporter of Assad naif childish propaganda. Assad mafia will get you to nothing but drama and nightmares. You have open the door of hell by killing peacefull demonstrators and now the outcome is clear. End of Assad and bath of blood. Destruction of Syria and massive sectarian killings.

Congratulations to the Stray Dog of the Desert, Assad II of once-used-to-be Syria.

The syrian people has given an historical lesson of braveness and determination for the fight of their freedom, rights and dignity. Thanks God all video material is well kept and future people of the world will have enough material to study and write about the Syria Revolution and its meaning in Human History.

Syria offered most of first steps to Human Mankind. Now has offered another one. How to free humanity from Iron Modern Dictatorship, Propaganda means and Repression.

Sandro to be honest I find these dire predictions to be tedious. It seems we have heard all of them 1000 times before.

There is a war on. There will be a winner. I think you know that the terrorists will not win. More than likely tens of thousands more Syrians will die – half of them will be soldiers. The war could spread to the entire region and perhaps the entire world. I hope not.

I think using “cartoon” to describe you is good. I do enjoy you more than Juergen – who just pastes silly pro-terrorist propaganda over and over. At least you seem to think up your posts. Maybe put them in a book of poetry?

Revenir
life goes on, but if you talk to anyone in Syria they complain about very high prices,many has no food to feed their children, middle class is becoming poor, most they are lucky if they find bread only to eat, they all say,we are lucky if we survive another day, they are afraid of bomb destroy their houses.

There are no terrorists, they are freedom fighter,to call 80% of syrian terrorist,means you are the terrorist.HA is a terrorist, Iraqi Shiaa who came to Syria to kill Syrians are the terrorist.
This is a revolution, whether you accept it or not,it will not end till we get rid of Assad thugs, ALL OF THEM

The day Assad walks out you will swallow your words. Assad cannot stay in power after this. This is the end of Assad. There will be no revival of Syria until Assad disappears. As long as Assad stays in power Syria will fall deeper and deeper. This is what you want.

The US decision to upgrade Syrian rebel weaponry has run into a major setback: debkafile reveals that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan phoned President Barack Obama in Berlin Wednesday, June 19, to report his sudden decision to shut down the Turkish corridor for the transfer of US and NATO arms to the Syrian rebels.

Against this background, the US President informed Congress Friday, June 22, that 700 combat-equipped American military personnel would remain in Jordan at the end of a joint US-Jordanian training exercise. They would include crews of two Patriot anti-aircraft missile batteries and the logistics, command and communications personnel needed to support those units. The United States is also leaving behind from the war maneuver a squadron of 12 to 24 F-16 fighter jets at Jordan’s request. Some 300 US troops have been in Jordan since last year.

As I said before: The Coast is predominately Alawi contrary to the claims of the Sunnis. Here is something for you.

When the French established the Alawi Independent State الدولة العلوية المستقلة on the first of Feb 1925, Colonel Jacquot, and his officers, made a census to determine who was living there at that moment.

The Alawi state had 278,000 people in it. A little more than a quarter of a million:

Alawites: 176285 from those 771 lived in cities only, and 175,514 lived in the villages.

Sunnis: 52148 from those 30081 lived in cities.

Christians: 34489 lived in cities (more than Sunnis) and 9955 lived in villages.

Ismailis: 4447 from those 2851 lived in villages.

They had democratic elections regulated by De Jouvenel in December 1925 for seats that were given as follows: 8 to Alawis, 3 to Sunnis, 3 to Christians (2 for the Orthodox and One for the Catholics) and one to the Ismailis.

Revenir
How silly to compare price increase in Colorado to price increase in Syria.
And if you repeat saying the army is mostly Sunni million time ,you are wrong.
Now that HA and Maliki from Iraq sending huge number of fighters to kill Syrians, arming the rebels may not be enough,Assad committed treason against Arabism by bringing all those persians to kill Arab, I hope all Arab states who has good conscious, send their troops to Syria to fight Persians and help free their brothers the Syrians, It is not fair for Syrians to fight Persian from Persia Iraq and Lebanon, those persians are criminal

Petersburg-Moscow (SANA) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said that President Bashar al-Assad is in confrontation with gunmen who were trained abroad, not with the Syrian people.

During a joint press conference with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, President Putin said that the international community and the US recognized Jabhat al-Nusra, which is key part of the armed opposition, as a terrorist organization.

“Of concern to us is the possibility of political vacuum if decisions are taken to replace the incumbent Syrian government…If Assad goes, a political vacuum will emerge…who will fill that vacuum?”

Putin said that ”During the G8 summit, everybody agreed to convince the parties to the conflict in Syria to sit to the negotiating table in the upcoming international conference in Geneva to find the appropriate solutions for Syria’s future as to realize the Syrians’ aspirations.”

“We should not impose a solution on the Syrian people, but have to create an environment conducive to dialogue,” Putin added.

Hardly a day goes by without the State of Israel demolishing an Arab home between the Jordan River and the sea. The hum of bulldozers is the constant background noise of Zionism. Listen to it for a few moments.

The demolition of the el-Arabiyeh family home in Anata exceeds all the terrible things I have seen in my 17 years in Rabbis for Human Rights. The sight of a boy or a girl coming back from school and discovering that their house was demolished is something I would not wish my worst enemies to see.

Syrians are fighting barbarian persians, they came from HA , MAlki Iraq troops, and persia per se, it is a duty of All Arabs to confront the barbarian persians, We need another Qadisiyyeh, we need another Omar ibn Khattab,The criminal barbarian persians are just like Mongols , they are the enemy of civilization, Khamieni is just like Holagu

I beg to disagree with Mr. Landis. All three options are just as bad. Once you throw out a government while no clear replacement is waiting you create a power vacuum. We can see such vacuum in the three North African states that were “blessed” with an Arab Spring revolution.

Only a strong, very likely dictatorial leader can fill such a vacuum. Very likely both the Gulf States, the US and Israel will do their best to prevent that from happening – keeping Syria in a state of semi-anarchy.

The best solution for Syria is real negotiations and compromise where the Assad government stays in place while reforms are implemented. That is the way it was done in South Africa, El Salvador, Spain and other places. That works.

The West admits to be “desperately concerned” by the presence of Hezbollah in Syria and less concerned by the presence of Al Qaeda.
The reason is obvious: The rebels are loosing and need urgent “aid”.
The gang of 11 just killed the Geneva conference by reiterating its conditions of the removal of Bashar al Assad. By doing so they have therefore declared war on Syria, Iran and Russia .

Eleven nations have agreed to “provide urgently all the necessary material and equipment” to rebels opposed to Syrian president Bashar Assad.

The UK has not committed to supply arms to the opposition but each of the 11 members of the Friends of Syria group of nations will “act in its own way” to support the rebels.

In a communique issued after talks in Qatar the ministers demanded the withdrawal of Hezbollah militias and fighters from Iran and Iraq who had sided with Assad’s regime.

The British Foreign Secretary William Hague said: “There’s been a very strong common sense of purpose among the eleven countries gathered here today, all desperately concerned about foreign intervention in Syria by Iran and by Hezbollah and by the seriousness of the humanitarian situation.
…
The ministers repeated their call for the establishment of a transitional governing body to which full executive powers would be transferred, which excluded “the central figures and associates whose hands are stained with blood”.

The communique said: “In this context, Bashar Assad has no role in the transitional governing body or thereafter.”

My sincere thanks to Hassan Nasrallah and HA whose involvement was the changing point in the history of the Syrian revolution. I feel so indebted that I would give them Qusair to hold onto it after Batta is toppled and our country return to its people.

May be currently displaced Qusair residents can then be relocated to the coast and enjoy the breeze?

Do you mean the “good feeling” someone has when he knows that thousands more Syrians will die, more cities destroyed and more blood will flow?
After all the destruction and death you have been rejoincing at, I am not surprised…
I think you could very well be HBJ twin sister…

Nice image of HBJ. Asma should have gotten herself a real man like him. Don’t you think.

And no, truth be told, I am way much prettier than Hamad. May be your twin sister?

In any case, please remember, Syrians took up arms to defend themselves. It is your president that is burning the country, leaving us no choice other than to continue to bear arms to defend our children, the ones slaughtered by your army heroic acts.

I find HBJ to be as repulsive as a vicious snake. That you see “manhood” in that wimp shows how seriously you are affected by the disease.

I really hope for your husband that you don’t look like him on the outside but you certainly do on the inside. Like him you are blinded by hatred and revenge and without an ounce of concern by causing more death of your own citizens as long as you haven’t achieved your personal vendetta.

The Lebanese Army Intelligence has apprehended Mahmoud S., a Jordanian national with ties to radical jihadi groups fighting in Syria. The man has confessed to providing armed groups in Syria with cash and weapons, and admitted to purchasing arms from the Palestinian Ain al-Hilweh refugee and then transferring them to groups in Tripoli.

A few days ago in the Lebanese city of Baalbeck, the Lebanese Army Intelligence apprehended a man identified as Mahmoud S., a Jordanian national born in 1970. Mahmoud possessed forged Palestinian refugee documents bearing the name of Ahmed Houjeir.

During his questioning, it emerged that the suspect had been closely involved in financing and supplying weapons to radical Islamist jihadi groups. Investigators were surprised by how quickly he confessed, without any pressure, and even proudly, to engaging in criminal and terrorist acts that would be sufficient to earn him a life sentence in any other country.

After Al Qusayr’s fall now Qaboon and Barzeh’s imminent seizure by the SAA is sending a shock wave to the pro-rebels.
The USA repeated five time that they are supposedly “concerned” by the welfare of the residents just to hide their real concerns of an eventual victory of Bashar Al Assad.

WASHINGTON, June 21 (KUNA) — The US voiced Friday its deep concern by the Assad regime’s ongoing seizures of neighborhoods in Damascus and the welfare of the residents.

State Department Acting Deputy Spokesperson Patrick Ventrell told reporters that the US voiced “deep concern by the Assad regime’s ongoing seizures of the Damascus neighborhoods of Al-Qaboun and Al-Barzeh.” He added that the two neighborhoods in Damascus “where regime forces, with the support of Hezbollah, have now repeatedly cut off access to food and medical supplies to 40,000 residents trapped inside.”
“We’re concerned by the implications that a major impending regime offensive may have in these areas. We expect many residents to try to flee in advance of the possible regime and allied militias attack. So we’re deeply concerned about the welfare of these citizens,” he remarked.

In Dowha,all agreed that the barbaric persians must get out of Syria,I believe one of the barbaric persians,so called HA, will be defeated in Syria,those barbarians should learn a lesson that they will never forget.

Al-Quds Brigades leader wounded in a clash with Hamas militia
On Saturday afternoon,a leader in the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad were wounded as a result of a clash between elements of the Jihad, and the so-called “security” of the Hamas Government in the neighborhood of sheja’eya in Eastern Gaza City.

Private sources : the leader who is an 38-year-old soldier, was taken to Shifa hospital in Gaza City, where his injuries were described as serious, the sources said that clashes were continuing in the vicinity of soldier”s home.

“Al-Monitor doesn’t cater to a regional audience but rather to a Western one,” said Hanin Ghaddar, who is the editor-in-chief of NOW Lebanon as well as a public policy scholar in the Middle East program at the Wilson Center and a contributor to Slate and the New York Times. “American readers take it like Al-Monitor provides a great service in translating articles and presenting news from the region. They don’t take the news and analysis presented in it with a grain of salt.”

Until Al-Monitor was founded, pro-Hezbollah journalists could only publish in resistance media outlets. In Al-Monitor, by contrast, their work is printed alongside reporting and analysis that falls within the mainstream of public policy discourse. Several of Al-Monitor’s critics point specifically to August 2011, when Al-Monitor’s founder and owner, a Syrian-born businessman named Jamal Daniel, bought a large share of As-Safir—a Beirut daily newspaper that the New York Times has variously described as a “pro-Assad Lebanese newspaper,” and “a left-leaning publication that often supports the pro-Assad Lebanese group Hezbollah.”

He, and others familiar with the expanding network of Islamic justice committees, said they were slowly revolutionising the way neighbourhoods were being managed in Damascus, spreading and entrenching Islamic principles of governance, and showed signs of bringing more efficient management to areas riven by conflict and material shortages.

They are also further eroding the already shallow influence of the SNC in and around the capital, opposition activists said, with the Islamic justice committees appearing, in part, as a response to failures of the official opposition to deliver aid or decisive, effective leadership more than two years into the Syrian uprising.
…
An Islamic justice committee in Aleppo, run by hardline fighting groups for several months, has imposed a controversial and uncompromising form of Islamic law on Syria’s commercial capital. It has also, with some success, built an effective system for running an urban municipality, supplying food, water and electricity, under difficult wartime conditions, and helped to stop looting. Similar committees operate in other areas of northern and eastern Syria outside regime control.

Who cares what they agreed upon?
Iran and HA couln’t care less of these ‘threats’, they’ve heard that empty tune many times before.
The meeting was simply a display of the gang of 11’s disunity, confusion, vagueness and absence of any common strategy.

Another squeezed hypocrite, now very worried about the consequences of the media reporting military training of rebels in Jordan and the (well rewarded) facilities offered by the King to Saudi Arabia to send weapons through its borders with Syria .

AMMAN, June 22 (KUNA) — Jordanian Prime Minister Dr. Abdullah Ensour Saturday brushed aside reports that Syrian opposition forces were trained on Jordanian territories.
Only Syrian refugees are in Jordan, and Amman was cooperating in the management of the refugee camps, Ensour said during a meeting with Arab and Western journalists.
Asked about the US forces in Jordan, Ensour said the troops were accompanying Patriot missile systems and the F-16 fighter jets, in addition to 200 soldiers specialized in chemical warfare.
He denied existence of American combat weapons, saying they were of defensive nature.
Ensour said the eager lion military drills with the US forces did not target Syria.
He, meanwhile, said Jordan was prepared to receive more Syrian refugees. He reiterated support for a political solution for the Syrian conflict that would preserve the country’s unity and stability.
Ensour said Jordan was against the foreign intervention in Syria. (

Istanbul // The Free Syrian Army has offered powerful Islamist rebel groups a share of advanced new weapons if they unify under the FSA banner.

General Salim Idriss, commander of the FSA, the name under which moderate rebel units fight, appealed to leaders of independent Islamist brigades – which are currently not part of the alliance he leads – to join its ranks, according to a leading figure from one of the armed Islamist factions involved in the talks.

“Idriss offered to support the Islamist factions by sharing the weapons he expects to receive, if they joined an alliance with the FSA and agree to certain conditions,” the Damascus-based rebel said yesterday.

He was briefed on the summit of anti-regime forces that took place in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday but declined to say what conditions Gen Idriss had set, adding that the militant Islamist groups had responded and would consider a deal but had their own set of conditions to be met before an agreement is reached.

….
The Wahhabi kingdom has exhausted its patience with miscarried attempts to resolve the Syria crisis through diplomacy and it will not wait to see the coming battle in Aleppo play out before assuming control of the Syrian rebellion
…
According to Elizabeth O’Bagy, the policy director at the Syrian Emergency Task Force and a senior research analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, the Saudis had a closed-door meeting with Gen. Salim Idris, the head of the Free Syrian Army’s Supreme Military Command, a few days ago, at which they offered to do “whatever it takes” to help Idris defeat Assad and his growing army of Shiite-Alawi sectarian militias. Though, this being a Saudi promise, “whatever it takes” can still be defined relatively: the discussion was limited to weapons, more resources and logistical support, O’Bagy said, though some of the hardware has already begun to materialize.

One unnamed Gulf source cited by Reuters has claimed that the Saudis have begun running shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles (MANPADs) into Syria. Furthermore, at least 50 “Konkurs,” Russian-made, wire-guided anti-tank missiles, have also turned up in Aleppo in the last week, as confirmed by the Daily Telegraph’s Mideast correspondent Richard Spencer (Konkurs are especially useful in destroying T-72 tanks, the most recent Soviet-era model that the Syrian Army uses.)

Deadly “Friends of Syria” did not believe in their victory, but continue to supply weapons to terrorists

One of the leaders of the main center of international terrorism – the Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani, announced the Foreign Ministers of the eleven countries, at a gathering of the “Friends of Syria” that the supply of advanced weapons to terrorists in Syria are “the only way to achieve peace … It is necessary to strike a balance the battlefield, the regime agreed to negotiate. “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry supported Ben Jassem, calling the killing of Syrians acceptable means to equalize the forces of terrorism with the legitimate government of the country. Noticeable skepticism and doubt in the effectiveness of the measures taken at the meeting, oddly enough, showed the British Foreign Secretary William Hague: “Even worse than these meetings would be their complete absence.”

I am not surprised with your opinion of all of us who are against Batta. If Jesus stood against Batta, you and the rest of the worshipers would declare him evil and ugly. Random opinions do not matter. The weight of an opinion carries the weight of its beholder.

It really is futile trying to get any of you to see. It is the supporters in my opinion who created the monster.

So US and Europe agreed to back the opposition just enough to create balance, the war will continue,Syrians will die,their properties will be destroyed.
The solution is clear,Egypt and Jordan must join KSA to send forces to fight and protect the syrian people from this murderous tyrant and stop this barbaric persian aggression those mongols like barbarian persians with Holagu Khaminie they are the enemy of civilization,their war always take long time but they will lose at the end,because those barbaric persian has the lower morality,they always forget their previous lessons.

Massive military victory of the rebels against Batta would risk uncontrolled outcome such as Alawi massacre. I am in favor of some sort of balance of power to ensure organized. transitional. Assad must go however.

The truth about the ‘successful’ meeting in Qatar where Europe and the US pledge ‘support’ of the rebels: It seems to be a gimmick to lure them in accepting the Geneva conference.
Europe will deliver nothing except non-lethal aids until the rebels are united… in a decade maybe?

Excited for 2 months, now UK is backing off giving weapons to the rebels. The US is the only western country that has authorized weapons delivery and no one knows what kind of weapons.

“On the much debated question of whether we should give lethal aid of any kind to the Syrian opposition, the position remains the same — we have taken no decision to do that,” he told reporters in the Qatari capital Doha.

Hague said any such decision would have to be debated in parliament.

He said that Britain’s main goals remain to “deliver more humanitarian aid” and “promote a political solution.”

“At the end, there is only a political solution for the conflict. We want to see a successful conference in Geneva,” he said, referring to a joint US and Russian proposal for a peace conference in the Swiss city.

The news leaves the United States alone among Western nations in authorising arming the rebels, following Barack Obama’s announcement a few days ago.

An Islamist network that recruits militants to carry attacks in Syria for Al Qaeda arrested in Spain. It would be interesting to find out who is financing them.
Is Spain still thinking of sending weapons to Syria and supporting the ‘good’ rebels?

MADRID: Eight suspected militants who formed part of a terrorist recruitment network that sent 50 militants to carry out attacks for Al-Qaeda-linked groups in Syria have been arrested, Spain’s interior minister said yesterday.
Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said the arrests by police early Friday in the Spanish north African enclave of Ceuta had disbanded and “neutralized” the network.
Diaz said that recruits were given training and finance by the network, which had two bases, one in Ceuta and the other in Morocco.
He said police had been able to determine that the network’s recruits had gone on to perpetrate terror attacks as part of the Al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat Al-Nusra organization.
Diaz said that when members who had been involved in terror attacks in Middle East returned to Europe they remained a threat to security, some as potential “lone wolf” terrorist who needed to be arrested.

The Saudis Are Getting Their Way in Syria
Posted by Lew Rockwell on June 22, 2013 03:09 PM

With the destruction of the secularist Assad regime. Says Taki, “Christians, Druze, Kurds, and Alawites are all goners once the brilliant Western brains overthrow Assad.” And “now have this rather strange alliance between the Sunnis, the Americans, and the know-nothing Europeans, with Israel as the tough guy protecting the oil-rich Arabs against the baddies, the Shiites.”(Thanks to EPJ)

“UK policy on Syria has no shred of democratic legitimacy. Overwhelmingly opposed by public and parliament, Hague’s acting in your name/money Syria war: US, Israel, Hague, Al Qaeda, Saudi Arabia etc Vs the UN Kofi Anan Peace Plan… Which side are you on?”

“Arms needed to bring about negotiation. Regime’s been waiting at the table for two years.. Rebels refused to turn up. “Foreign forces must leave Syria” ….but only if they are Lebanese or Iranian, says funder of Al Qaeda invasion force….”

The Saudi-Qatari plan is a simple one. Drive a Sunni corridor through the Middle East all the way to Iran, splitting Syria and empowering the Sunni minority in neighboring Iraq to revolt against the Shiite ruling majority.

The Salafist hardcore clergy that rules the street in Saudi Arabia and Qatar plays ball with the ruling families in the two countries as long as their long-term plan for Sharia law to rule the Middle East is on track. Secular leaders such as Assad, and Saddam before him, have been the stumbling blocks for this grand strategy. Once Assad is gone, and the Sunni revolt in Iraq manages to split that country also, they only need to deal with Iran. That is where Israel enters. Iran could take over the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia in a week, but Israel will never allow it. So we now have this rather strange alliance between the Sunnis, the Americans, and the know-nothing Europeans, with Israel as the tough guy protecting the oil-rich Arabs against the baddies, the Shiites.

The party begins for Russia and US. Now it is when they will make real money. All this thanks to the incredible stupidity of Assad II The Last. Congratulations brainless President-Dog-God. Also called the stray dog or the hyena of the desert.

“Each country in its own way” means Kerry failed – badly – to united the weapon flow. It seems then that Saudi Arabia and Qatar will continue to provide weapons to Jabhat al-Nusra and the other takfiri terrorist groups in Syria.

This disunity should let the Obama administration recognize that their argument to feed weapons to the “good rebels” to starve the takfiris will not work. When Qatar and Saudi Arabia continue to provide these “in their own way” then the takfiris will continue to be the strongest section of the insurgency.

As a lot of new weapons are streaming in the Syrian Arab Army should probably stop its current offense and stay defensive while devising new tactics against such weapons. Tanks advancing openly or as sitting ducks at checkpoints are massive targets and will not survive an onslaught of Konkurs-M, Kornet and other modern anti-tank weapons. There are ways to counter them but that will need some time to be prepared and trained. Meanwhile large weapon transports can be observed and raided in quick and surprising raids could interdict them.

Ziad
Aren’t you ashamed making silly analysis, and what is it now you quote Goerge Gallaway,while in the past you quote Bassam al Qadi, is this a promotion?.
I say silly analysis, as you say Israel is protecting KSA, we all know that US is protecting KSA, would you stop this nonsense,this is holagu Khamieni ideas

Jun 22, 2013 – Beirut (SANA – H. Said) – The Lebanese al-Akhbar newspaper revealed that the toxic chemical materials which the terrorist groups used in Khan al-Assal area in Aleppo last March were transferred by two Qatari officers across Turkey.

The newspaper pointed out that the transfer of chemical substances was done with the knowledge of Ankara, according to security information disclosed by an intelligence apparatus of a certain regional state.

The Qatari officers are Maj. Fahd Saeed al-Hajiri and Capt. Faleh Bin Khalid al-Tamimi, according to the information.

The Lebanese newspaper noted that the Turkish authorities tried to cover up the transfer process, particularly after Russian demands for explanations, by announcing the arrest of 12 Jabhat al-Nusra members with chemical materials, including 2 kg of sarin gas, in their possession.

The information provided by the aforementioned intelligence service stressed that the two Qatari officers were killed in a suspicious explosion in Somalia, which meets with Russian presumption on the same issue.

The newspaper was referring to the suicide bombing which targeted a Qatari procession in Mogadishu on the 5th of last May and in which 8 people at least were reported killed .

Media reports then highlighted how Qatar was trying to keep what happened off light to conceal the death of two high-ranking Qatari officials, one of them was in charge of coordinating work of recruiting terrorists who are being sent to Syria.

The information revealed by al-Akhbar newspaper coincides with reports by The Washington Post which stressed that after months of lab tests by U.S. experts, no evidence was reached to prove the allegations made by the “Syrian opposition” that chemical weapons were used by the Syrian government.

I simply do believe he is helping Syrians because his hearrt aches for them. I like for a man in power to feel the pain of others. I like to feel, see, and touch humanity. I do search for it very hard. I am damn honest in my emotions hence, l particularly like Hamad and Erdogan.

The SNC does not exist anymore, it is history. Now Selim Idriss is the leader. Where is Hitto the PM of the ghost “government in exile”? Is he already in Edlib?
What happened to the three ghosts ‘ambassadors’? still looking for a room for their ’embassy’?

Move on, dear…
Sabra, Al Khatib are all sidelined after their inability to unite, their ability to further divide, and their reapeted failures. There has been not a single reference to the SNC in Qatar.
Selim Idriss is the new horse the Gang of 11 is betting on. The others including Hitto are dead horses.

The wives of most Iranian politicians are almost invisible on Iran’s political scene. Iranian leaders seem to believe that a good and honorable wife is someone who stays away as much as possible from the public sphere.

Khamenei’s wife appears to be the most invisible.

There is no picture of her and no one seems to know anything about her. Her last name is reportedly Khojaste; her first name remains a mystery and so does her face.
…

What does your husband expect from you?

He doesn’t expect anything but a happy, calm, and healthy family environment.
Please tell your view about the Islamic Hijab for our readers.

I think chador is the best cover for outside the home. For inside the home, it’s very different. Of course clothing should always be according to Islamic chastity.

Zoo
the article that you posted easily can be used against you, did you read it before you posted it?
And don’t Shiaa believe in Mutaa wife? do you have the same thinking?
You asked the question, and then you asked to move on, why did you go back? this is very embarassing to you,I bet you regret you asked the question.

Qadri Jamil is placed under house arrest,so he will quit open his mouth.he criticized Mayyaleh.
Today Assad increase salaries 5-40%, immidiately raised the price of Mazot.to 60 lira for one litre, this means every thing will go up double soon.
Has anyone heared about Farooq Shar3
Most analysts think Lira will drop further,and could reach 300 for one dollar

At least 14 people were killed and 28 injured in an attack on a Shiite religious school in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, police officials said, while Taliban militants claimed responsibility for killing a provincial lawmaker and his son in the southern port city of Karachi.

Jad
Hasanein Heikal is wrong his opinion is worthless, his numbers are messed up.,

There are news that the Lebanese army may get arms to bolster its power, from US and Europe,these news are not verified,The Lebanese president said HA should not interfere in Syria without the Goverment of Lebanon approval,John Qahwaji agrees with him
US has news that the rockets that were directed to Beirut ,only HA has them
The other news is that Persia gave HA one billion dollar to fight in Syria

“For those who asked me on Twitter yesterday, I say: I am not only in favor of the overthrow of the Bashshar Asad regime: I am fully in favor of an armed insurrection against the regime but not by Islamist tools of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey and the rest of Western Enemies of Syria. Show me a secular progressive battalion fighting against the Syrian regime, and not getting Saudi-Qatari-Israeli help, and I will send them money–if it is legal because I think under US laws you can only send money to either Israeli terrorists or to the terrorists in Syria who are on the pay of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.”

“When the revolt started, Sunni activists tried to reach out to minorities, framing the uprising as a collective move against oppression for all Syrians.

Opposition figures blame the failure of those efforts on government propaganda characterising the rebels as violent extremists and on the use of Alawite paramilitary militias known as “shabbiha” to harass, maim and kill unarmed protesters.”

No! We are not all human. Being a human is a status you do not have. You lost that classification since calling the pile of throat-slit children and their mothers on top in Bayda, Banias “hardly a massacre”.

I am glad I make you angry. It gives me a fleeting satisfaction when expressing the contempt I feel towards “hardly a massacre” beings successfully. But please, I beg of you, do not tell your shabeeha family and friends and I am sure many of them are. I just do not want you beings take it out on yet to be slaughtered Syrian child. I am sure you can be comforted by reviewing all the images linked by Syrian Hamster” about the massacre and forget all about me. Go and enjoy.

Memo: the Shii community in Egypt exists at least since the tenth century. Al Azhar mosque was initially founded by the Fatimids as a tool for Shiite propaganda. Many Egyptian Ismaili Shiis emigrated to India at the beginning of the twentieth century.